Darkling

by Sabolic, Mima

  Darkling

  Mima Sabolic

  Copyright © 2013 by Mima Sabolic

  www.mimasabolic.com

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Free Will

  Chapter 2: Dinner

  Chapter 3: The First Day

  Chapter 4: Blow

  Chapter 5: The Reception

  Chapter 6: The Incident

  Chapter 7: The Trip

  Chapter 8: The Decision

  Chapter 9: The Facing

  Chapter 10: The Bite

  Chapter 11: A Hobby

  Chapter 12: Wellness

  Chapter 13: The Attack

  Chapter 14: A Painting

  Chapter 15: Theories

  Chapter 16: Thanksgiving Day

  Chapter 17: A Weak Link

  Chapter 18: Early Vacation

  Chapter 19: Balthazar

  Chapter 20: A French Rome

  Chapter 21: Through the Woods

  Chapter 22: A Deal

  Chapter 23: Swearword

  Chapter 24: Pain

  Chapter 25: The Awakening

  Chapter 26: The Escape

  “Oh yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am”

  - Virginia Woolf, The death of the moth

  “Men died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh”

  - Lord Byron, Darkness

  Chapter 1

  Free will

  Some chase dreams, some nightmares. I’m still not sure which course I have taken.

  It rained the entire road trip, which was not how I pictured my departure. I tried not to long for the Californian sun, because this was supposed to be a temporary absence. Every change is good—at least that’s what the brochures say. But I’m not used to it. I guess that’s why I drove the I-80 and ended up in this remote place, chosen by the blind landing of my index finger on the map.

  Sioux City, Iowa. The town of sky walks.

  I stayed at the Clarion Hotel. There was a conference in town, and I was lucky to find a room. I didn’t mind the crowd; for three days I had purposely avoided every soul on the road, so the sound of chitchat and the sight of a few smiling faces felt good for a change.

  The Fourth Street Historic District was a block from my hotel. I walked in the shadow of brick buildings designed in neo-romantic style, a well-preserved legacy from the nineteenth century. Flower shops, bookstores, and bars filled the spaces behind the store windows. It was cloudy, so the color of stonework and old streetlights stood out in contrast to the rest, and there was a marker on the street—something with a name, but I couldn’t see it clearly through the heavy traffic.

  Regardless of the traditional idea of Iowa rural scenery, this town had a certain allure. The mixture of history and spirits created a nice atmosphere, even on such a gloomy day. I had read on the net that Children of the Corn was filmed in Iowa fields, and that musician Glen Miller was from there too. I pictured the sound of trombones mingling well with the mid-fall weather.

  My dad was a sucker for jazz. In our first apartment, instead of paintings or photographs, framed vinyl covers and flyers featuring significant jazz characters had filled the walls. He played piano. Nothing professional, just for his own pleasure. He never attended music school; he was an accountant and apparently lived in two different worlds: the one where he was, and the other where he would have liked to be. Thinking about my parents, I don’t know if he was right to live as he did, or if he just couldn’t do it—life—differently.

  Nina Simone for rainy days and Billie Holiday was for melancholic moments. No matter what my taste in music was, I’d never lose the memories of that old crackling vinyl sound. That was the sound of home.

  A tourist brochure from my hotel said that, of all the states, Iowa has the most towns named after European capitals: Lisbon, Luxemburg, Madrid, New Vienna and Rome. However, the populations of these towns were miserably low. Rome only had 113 people! And Swedish immigrants were the founders of Madrid. I found this interesting.

  Hunger gnawed at me, so I stopped in at the first restaurant I saw. Without a second thought, I ordered a double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke. The menu said I was in Dante’s. I figured it was nice to know the name of my poisoner.

  The place was half-full. A gray-haired man, who someone called Bob, nervously watched football on the TV that hung from the wall.

  A girl with the nametag “Sandy” brought my feast, and, as usual, I hardly ate and shuffled the food around my plate.

  “Do you want a box for that?” Sandy asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said, and then remembered something. “There’s a marker on this street. You know which one I mean?”

  “Sure. It’s for Reverend Haddock, a victim of Prohibition.” Sandy returned to my table and planted her hand on her waist. “This town used to be a roost of alcohol, gambling, and prostitution. Iowa lonesome… where everybody closed their eyes for the good of profit.”

  “It must’ve been fun.”

  “Sure. You’d be sitting in a saloon watching two men fight over some paramour.” Her statement made a few of the patrons laugh, and I could almost see the wooden edges of the bar slowly transform into images from the past.

  “One man decided to clean the town of sin and force people to obey the law.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “He was one tough bastard. But he took a bullet in the neck near that street marker.”

  The suicidal mission of one against many. On my way out of Dante’s, I glanced at the booze collection. That Reverend died in vain, which reminded me how there’s not much sense to the passionate urges that make us move rocks. Especially when they’re motivated by the subjective whims of their time. Just like the truth, right?

  On my way back to the hotel, Sandy’s words stayed with me. A slideshow of images passed through my mind: the shot, the bullet hitting bone, that tough bastard Reverend suffocating on his own blood, the bloody sidewalk, bloody street…

  “Oh, sorry!” I said as I entered the hotel and bumped into an old man. I collected my thoughts, and realized that I was staring at him—into the deep, dark abyss of his eyes, deeper than I’d ever imagined possible.

  I didn’t know what kind of face I had made, but he seemed equally startled. He wore a brown suit and held a dark coat in his arms. His posture was hunched. I’d never seen a face in such suffering. Even the position of his body followed an arc of sadness. Our gazes were locked in surprise. I could feel his pain stinging my skin. I didn’t know who he was or who he reminded me of, but I knew the pain he felt was something that no one should experience. Something that no one deserved. Before I realized what I was saying, the words had left my mouth.

  “Here for the convention?” My outburst only intensified the weird vibe between us.

  He was standing under a golden lamp near the reception desk. All at once, the noise of the other people in the lobby broke through to my ears. The convention was over for the day.

  “You seem sad,” I stated awkwardly.

  People were passing by us, noisily discussing dinner and the meeting. I wasn’t sure that he’d heard what I’d said, but his bushy eyebrows lifted and his eyes remained fixed on me.

  Suddenly there was a tall man standing between us, his worried look locked with mine. I could hear the new man asking i
f I was all right. He repeated it twice. First, I heard a buzzing sound and then only my pulse beating in my ears. I tried to look for the old man, but I saw only his back. Two other men had appeared, and flanked him as they followed him out. They looked like the rest of the businessmen in the hall, but there was something different about their postures. The guy in front of me still gave the impression that if I fainted, he was ready to catch me. Avoiding him, I turned and retreated to my room, suffering the unnervingly slow elevator.

  Shocked, I sat on my bed for a while. I had questions, but I couldn’t put my finger on any of them. I fell asleep fully dressed.

  *

  My scream woke me.

  I pushed the damp hair from my forehead. Through the sunlight filling the room, I could still see the face from my dream—the sad lines and deep eyes gazing into me. They didn’t ask for anything; they just existed. My waking mind started to sweep away the dream-life pain. Those probing eyes still lingered in my thoughts, though. Suddenly, my throat soured; images of Selene and Kyle, fake touches and smiles, the silence of the friends who knew the whole truth…. And that was the moment when my real-life pain kicked in.

  Lies. A ton of fears—hell, all my fears! I hated feeling like I couldn’t control my role in my own life! I now saw lies in every relationship. I felt like I was suffocating, I could barely breathe. A sharp cry left my mouth, destroying all my composure. I fell on the pillows, grabbing them tight, and then I sobbed, without a break, for hours. There was a lot of junk left inside me.

  I believe I broke the record of listening to Dan Auerbach’s lines: “Lies, lies… ohh, lies” on repeat mode. When I stopped shaking and finally felt freer of the pain, a feeling of emptiness overtook me.

  Staring at the white walls, I could smell my own tears. My body and my dark hair were stretched over wet pillows. I felt numb, fully exhausted. There were no more tears, only their shadows on the bed sheet.

  When I was a child, I heard someone say that light-colored eyes see a brighter side of life, and dark eyes—the darker one. Mine are brown. It frightened me then, and now—I didn’t know what to think of it. I realized then that not only can you not trust others, but you can’t trust yourself, either.

  It wasn’t hard to leave California. The problem would be going back, and that’s a subject I wasn’t willing to think about right then. That goes for some people I didn’t want to remember, either. I clicked the TV remote, hoping to find a good movie to help me forget about things.

  There was a knock on my door.

  It sounded again while I was deciding whether to ignore it.

  In the silence between the knocks, I felt someone’s nervous presence outside. That was unsettling. I opened the door.

  “What?!”

  A boy, younger than me, was standing with his hand poised to knock again. He seemed startled, but I repeated my question in the same impatient tone.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I was told to give you this.” He held out a plate with a white business card. I didn’t take it.

  “Mister is waiting for you in the lobby.”

  Mister? Bushy eyebrows flashed in front of my eyes, so I took the card and closed the door. The card was a shade of pearl and felt nice to the touch, which instantly reminded me of American Psycho.

  Oswald Gray

  Gazini, Inc.

  Intelligence Analyst

  Interesting. I quickly took a shower and dressed in jeans, a black shirt and a pair of Converse gathered my hair into a ponytail and left the room. I didn’t pass anyone in the lobby. Walking toward the leather sofas, I noticed the over-polite guy from the night before. I immediately looked around for the old man, but no—we were alone. The guy stood up and gestured for me to join him. Unwillingly, I approached.

  “Good day.” A big grin covered his face. “My name is Oswald. I apologize for the interruption.”

  If he knew my room number, he must’ve known my name. I surprised myself with my pleasant tone.

  “Good day.” It was hard to be tough against his polished appearance. Any agitation that I had felt toward him started to fade. Oswald motioned to the sofas and we sat.

  “Where is the old man?”

  Oswald’s eyebrows raised, but he knew whom I meant.

  “As a matter of fact, the reason I called you down here is to discuss our mutually interesting person,” he paused, as if searching for the right words. I couldn’t even imagine where this was heading.

  “I work for a multinational corporation, but I’m of no significance in its hierarchy, so I must apologize if my knowledge is limited. The person you mentioned is of great interest to us, but there is a problem arranging communication with him. When the board saw the recordings of your encounter yesterday, they concluded that you might be the key to a dialogue. My job is to convince you to come with me so we may explain what we’d like you to do for us in greater detail, but you can consider it as a job offer of sorts.”

  I didn’t answer right away. After a while, my silence started to be uncomfortable. But really, what could I possibly say to that? Polite-man shot me a supportive smile. I guess he was giving me time to process his request, but there was nothing to think about. I mean, the offer was completely absurd. I was thinking of all the horror movies I could fit into this paradigm. His face was pale and his joyful supportive eyes gave out the impression of trustworthy and sincerity.

  “Your plane ticket would be taken care of and all expenses paid, of course.”

  “This sounds like a scam,” I told him. “I don’t understand what you want from me. I ran into someone yesterday, and now you want to hire me? Why? And explain why you can’t just get in touch with him directly?!”

  He smiled and leaned toward me. “Persons like the one you mentioned are of, let’s say, an untamed character and are unable to create quality dialogue with us. Therefore, we need people with the rare talent of empathy that are in tune with his race to help us.”

  This conversation had rapidly turned into a bad Sci-fi channel movie. His race? Really? And Oswald said it with a straight face, still radiating pleasantness and trustworthiness.

  “Race?” There was an edge to my voice.

  “Yes. However, I am not at liberty to reveal anything further before you talk with my superiors. Your flight will leave in a couple of hours, and it is my responsibility to ensure that you be on it.”

  “Is that a threat?” My tone didn’t surprise me, but his polite smile that followed definitely did.

  “No need for that. If your safety worries you, it should not; you are perfectly safe. There are many ways that we can manipulate or coerce, but we would never force you against your will. The decision is up to you, but it’s my job to try to convince you.”

  “That could take a while. Don’t you have a plane to catch?”

  “It’s a private jet. Time is flexible.”

  “So, what does your corporation do?” I asked.

  “It holds many companies in various industries. For example, my job is to hunt for special clients.”

  “And the old man is special?”

  “Very much so,” his tone was mild. “But you will know more tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “It’s a long flight.”

  I had more questions, but the more we talked, the more I realized that I would eventually succumb to Oswald’s persuasion. Both of us could smell my defeat. The charm of this man was enough to lure virgins into the Centaur’s lair—and they would go with a smile. I went along too, but at least I was wary enough not to smile.

  Boarding the jet, I tried to shrug off a mixture of anger and frustration. After all, it was as he said: I was going of my own free will. Amen to the whole thing, whatever it might be.

  I wasn’t frightened during the flight. Maybe I was going to the meeting or maybe to slaughter, but for some absurd reason I didn’t feel any fear. Oswald Gray was still looking like a person worth of my trust, and I thought that the whole arrangement seemed way too ritzy
for me to end up in some German brothel. His last name reminded me of my initial thought on my road trip—that I needed to find my own shade of gray. In light of the events that would follow, I would later realize that he was my White Rabbit. Even his time was ticking.

  Against my better judgment, I fell asleep twice during the flight. Confused by the time zones, I lost all sense of time. The little dot on the screen was all I knew, and that was us. We were heading toward northern Europe. Destination was still unknown, but I was calm enough to read National Geographic, mental_floss, and other magazines on the Kindle that Oswald Gray had given me. What exactly was wrong with me?

  My White Rabbit seemed to always be working on his laptop. Without sleeping or slowing his rhythm, he typed, took cell phone calls, but spoke in languages unknown to me. From time to time, he would send me a smile or some polite line. Apart from us, there were two more men in dark suits, younger than Rabbit who looked to be in his early forties. Every time I shot them a sidelong glance, they were sitting there doing nothing, in contrast to Oswald Gray, who seemed allergic to stillness.

  No one had asked for my phone, and since cell phone usage was apparently permitted on this flight, I could freely have used it if I liked. So my role of a kidnapped victim wasn’t entirely convincing. It seemed like I should call or text, at least to let someone know where I was. But then, who was I supposed to call? Of course, my parents were out of the question because, really, what would I say? Hey Mom, Dad, first I left Berkeley, then I was kidnapped and now I am flying over Europe to an unknown destination.

  Yeah, right.

  The reason I left in the first place was to find my life. Sorta. To stop comparing myself with the expectations of others. To quit being a supporting role in my own existence. I’d never been on my own; but considering my current situation—maybe that wasn’t bad at all. Still, I felt more relaxed than earlier in the flight—I had left the tension in my stomach over the middle of the Atlantic. I felt bizarrely at ease in all of this absurdity!