Alessandro swore in Italian as another pancake flipped over black, batter once again going everywhere.
“Hey sexy,” Madison said as she walked over and handed Peter another bowl of mix, “Is this enough?”
He looked down at the bowl. Madison brought up the spoon and wiped a fair amount of batter on his forehead. He backed off, getting more batter on his hands and chest.
“Maddie!” He screamed.
She laughed. He did his best to wipe it off and chased her with his batter drenched hands.
“No! Please. Sorry, love you,” she said trying to squirm her way out of receiving a counter attack. She had on a long pink button up dress and it would be a shame to get it on her.
“Oh you bum,” he said. The batter was dripping onto his polo shirt. “Now I have to change,” he whined.
“You don’t need a shirt,” Maddie stated.
“Yes I do, it’s chilly, and I’m making food.”
“Fine, go,” she said and gave him a kiss.
“I’ll be back,” he said and walked away to change.
“Hey, can you make sure Sophie’s still alive?” Alessandro asked him. He looked around.
“Where is she?” He asked him.
“In our room, she left and said she’d be right back,” he answered.
“Fine, ‘cause I’d hate for her to be missing.”
He walked through the salon, it was filled with sleeping kids. The whole yacht was filled with people. The cream of the school’s crop.
He came to the master room and knocked on the door lightly, no answer. But there was music, soft, maybe French. He opened the door a bit more and looked in. The room was dark and had an atmosphere, not oppressive, just dark, like something you’d see in a burlesque show. He and Maddie had to go through the room to get to the Master Lounge.
And then He saw Sophie. Really saw her. She sat in front of a large dressing mirror putting in earrings. Her back was to him, she turned around and grabbed a pair of bikini bottoms and started pulling them up. but he could see that she was naked and he could also see that in the mirror. Her breasts were perfectly molded and he could see a line of blonde pubic hair that Sophie kept unshaved.
She turned back, still not seeing Peter, he was too far in the room to turn back. She saw his reflection in the mirror and screamed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, “It’s just me, calm down.”
“I’m covering up. What do you want?” she asked.
He was dead. She was going to tell Maddie and then God knows what.
“Can I help you?” she asked him, pulling up her bikini bottoms and covering her breasts.
“Alessandro wanted me to check on you,” he mumbled and looked down.
“Well good job, tell him you checked me out. I’ll be out soon,” she said as Peter walked into the Lounge.
He wasn’t too afraid of Alessandro. He had his own problems and definitely no match for him physically. No, he was undeniably more scared of Madison.
He changed his shirt thinking about Maddie. She was so weird sometimes. Bordering on genius weird, no beyond it, she was a genius. Maybe she was just using him, maybe she was planning on taking over the world and He was going to be her henchman.
He grabbed a light blue shirt, everything else he had was too heavy for this time of the year, but with the sun dimming, who knows.
***
He walked back upstairs and sat at a table by himself. He had no idea where anyone was. But he didn’t exactly look.
Sophie came up in a bikini and a sarong. She looked at him and then took off her glasses and looked up at the cocooned sun.
“What the hell is that?” she asked. “What’s wrong with the sun?”
“The dragons eating the sun,” Peter said.
“That’s eclipses,” Maddie said from behind him, she put her arms around him.
Sophie turned and looked at them.
“Weird,” she muttered and started dishing up a small plate of food.
Things were changing, he knew that and he thought everyone else did too. Maddie had once told him about collective conscience. That somehow all the minds in the world were linked on some plane. Philosophers and scientists have debated it for centuries she told him. But looking at Sophie, it was like everything else anyone had done before that second didn’t matter. And the fear ate at his stomach again.
Chapter 9
The weekend was over, Maddie and Peter were driving back from New York to New Haven. Lee, Olivia, Sophie and Alessandro decided to take a ferry back.
Not that the day was super pleasant or anything, it was more like a fog or haze, or a deeply depressing snowy November day, but no snow and no fog. Just an ever growing dullness.
By now the sun story was everywhere. It couldn’t be hidden. Reports were in about riots all over the world as food was being hoarded.
Maddie reached over and touched his arm and gave him a warm smile.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” she inquired.
Peter, like a bad poker player, easily betrayed his thoughts with his facial expressions. Just little things, but Maddie could catch them. He looked up at the dull outline of a disc that use to be mankind’s life giver and now was probably the harbinger of doom.
She nodded her head.
“Only you and about seven billion others.”
He reached over and touched her cool legs; she was wearing a long denim skirt that afforded him such a pleasure.
“Have you ever read the Bible?” she asked him.
“Uhm, a little. At school, it was recommended.”
“Did you ever read Ezekiel?”
“Never heard of the guy.”
“It’s not a guy, well he is, but it’s a book in the Old Testament.”
“A book in the Old Testament? I thought the bible was a book.”
She sighed.
“Anyways. Ezekiel thirty two, verses seven and eight “When I blot you out, I will veil the heavens and darken stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud and the moon will not give you its light. Yes, I will bring darkness everywhere across your land. Even the brightest stars will become dark above you. I, the lord have spoken.”
“And you remembered that?” Peter asked truly shocked.
She smiled.
“Think the food will be okay with no sun?” He asked.
“No, of course not. Do you not know about photosynthesis?”
“Yeah, of course, I just mean…”
“I know what you mean. It’ll probably take about a month or so before massive famines start, maybe less in lesser developed nations. Once the sun’s rays are sufficiently blocked and the earth is in effect sterilized, the vegetation will start dying. It’ll be a domino effect really. Grass, gazelle, lion. Grass, cow, human, you get the drift. Oh also the lungs of the world, the Amazon will die and our oxygen will decrease,” she explained, “We could suffocate, if we manage to live that long. It’ll be a good time for fungus though.”
Now she was the harbinger of doom. She was too smart for her own good.
“Well maybe it’ll go away just as fast as it came,” he suggested.
“No,” Maddie said crushing his bland optimism, shaking her head, “A cosmic body of that size… no. But I could be wrong. Months probably, at the least.”
And she was probably right Peter thought, she was always right. He always felt kind of dumb around her. Not that he was stupid, it’s just that she was that much smarter. Sometimes he hated bringing up things around her, he’d think he was totally right about something and she’d correct him. Not around people, she had tact, luckily for him and his manhood. Peter thought his parents would be surprised if they meet her. His father would make fun of him and ask her why a creature like her was with a caveman like him. But they’ve never met, so screw them, they banished him here. Well as much as he did he supposed.
“I think, and this is just a theory, that it could be a part of the mysterious tenth planet, or I guess ninth planet now,” she offered.
“Tenth planet? What’s that?”
“Never heard of it? Some call it Nibiru, some Nemesis. Well, there’s supposed to be an irregular gravity pull outside our known solar system and some believe that that means that there’s a massive body, maybe the size of Jupiter or bigger causing such a gravitational pull.”
“Okay, and how does that come into play here?”
“Well, some have said that it’s supposed to eventually come our way and cause Armageddon. But maybe on its way here something happened; as preposterous as it sounds, but maybe it broke up somehow, that would explain the massiveness of the cloud.”
“So I take it the cloud isn’t a cumulous cloud?” He asked.
She looked at him and shook her head.
“Uhm, no. Space clouds are usually just dust, but this one, I suspect if my theory is correct could have giant pieces of a planet, but really, there are probably a million different theories.”
He kissed her.
“Yeah but they don’t belong to you,” he said trying to be sweet.
It was starting to get darker and we entered New Haven just as the street lights came on, shops and houses were illuminated brightly trying to brighten up the ever growing dullness of days.
New haven was a nice town if you ever saw one. Because of Yale, it had its fair share of museums, theatres and a quaint feel about it. And a lot of college students. There was a population of about 120,000. Fairly large.
“Can’t we still survive? Like we don’t necessarily need the sun. I mean look at this town. We’ve got gardens everywhere and look at our school. We have two giant green houses. And we grow all our own greens and fruits. That’s all artificial light,” he said.
“It’s not just the UV light purely. Greenhouses just can’t possibly create enough food and products that our race would need to survive in such great numbers, sometimes we forget how important farmers are to us. It’s also the psychological ramifications you know,” Maddie explained.
“Man, it was just winter, I’ve had enough of the darkness.”
“See what I mean,” Maddie said continuing her bleak portrait of the future. “We need the sun, we need our vitamin D. Without things like that mankind will face mental conditions like seasonal disorder on a massive scale. I mean the ones that survive of course.”
“Hmm,” he nodded his head, “And this is all happening soon.”
“It’s happening now.”
They hit the gates of Northridge and Peter pressed his security card against the detection scanner. It beeped and the gates opened.
Northridge was built over the ashes of an old prep school that was shut down almost a hundred years ago. Everything there was state of the art now. The school was meant as a kind of experiment, a bridge between High School and College, for those gifted enough to attend Yale, but for one reason or another not quite ready. The school also wanted to be known for its green culture and wanted to see if they could be, for the most part, be self-sustaining. They had two greenhouses. One above ground and another giant one below ground where they grew their our own fruits and vegetables.
They also produce their own electricity. They had hydro-power via a man made waterfall. They also switched all the roofing tiles with solar power converters and they also have a windmill generator. And for back-up they have a hook-up to the town for certain things and in case all those failed, they had gas powered generators.
Even the uniforms were made in the home economics class.
As for the students, ninety nine percent of the kids weren’t from around there to say the least, some even from other countries. So they lived in dorms. They were located about a quarter mile from the school, all located on thirty five acres right next to the Long Island Sound in the glorious state of New York. Complete with large overlooking cliffs and a drop of fifty feet or so.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised.
“I know.”
“Are you scared?” He asked as they drove past the gates.
“Humans aren’t known for their rationality. We have the means right now for a perfect world, but not the will. I know you’re all pro-military and I get that, but the budget for one day of the United States Defense could feed the entire continent of Africa for a week, but as Humans are naturally flawed creatures, it’s in the bible. We’ve fought and killed to get where we are, into this state of self satisfaction for a tiny percent of the world. We’ve always fought against our demons and the darkness. So, I guess the real question is what happens when the light disappears?”
Chapter 10
“Madison just threw up,” Rachel laughed.
The place was loud with screams of thrills and of carnies trying to peddle their crap. The smells were intoxicating tempting the masses into buying fried food of all sorts, mini donuts, cotton candy, god-only-knows on a stick. The atmosphere, the night, the sea air, it all added up. This is what youth was all about, Peter and his friends at New Haven’s spring Fair.
Rachel and Jack found him and Lee in the lineup for the Haunted House ride. Originally Maddie had been with them, but she needed to go to the washroom and in her inebriated state Rachel had gone with her.
“Is she alright? I knew she was drinking too much,” Peter said a little pissed. Rachel nodded her head.
“She’ll be okay, but her red guess shirt will never be the same,” Rachel joked.
“She’ll live,” Sophie declared walking over. “Olivia’s with her. She’s getting some air.”
“Well I’m not going on this ride.” Lee declared. “Back home…”
“Wait,” Peter interrupted, “Where’s back home?”
“Japan.”
“You’re not Japanese,” Peter laughed, “You were born in Virginia.”
“Shut up, anyways you don’t understand my country’s obsession with horror. When I was nine my father took me and my cousin on a ride and it scarred me for life. I refuse to go!”
“What country is that? Japan?”
“Peter… shut up.”
“You’re a black man, trying to be Japanese, it’s the weirdest thing.”
“It’s not weird, I’ve just embraced my various heritages. And in the Japanese culture, it’s the male line that you descend from, so…”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Sophie said rolling her eyes.
Rachel and Wendham were holding hands; apparently they were something of an item.
“Whatever I should check on Maddie,” Peter said.
“She’s alright,” Rachel said, “Come on, don’t be a baby.”
“Maybe he’s scared,” Sophie mocked.
“I’m not scared!” Peter replied rolling his eyes deliberately. “Besides I don’t want to go by myself.”
“Fine,” Sophie sighed.
“What?”
“I’ll go with you,” Sophie offered. “You’re such a baby.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to, you’ve done enough,” he said.
“It’s okay, I like to do charity work,” she told him and turned to Lee. “The others are by the tilt o’ whirl. I’m sure they’re okay.”
“I don’t know,” Peter said. “What if Maddie wants me to go?”
“She’s okay! It’s not like Olivia’s poisoning her. Besides I want to go!” Sophie said, dangerously close to her ‘daddy I want’ voice.
He sighed and said fine, mimicking her earlier voice. Sophie looked at him.
“Attitude,” Sophie said and walked in front of him and gave the carnie her tickets. The ride was now loading. “Come on!” she said, “Besides you got an eyeful the other night, so the least I can get is a chaperone.”
He handed the man his tickets.
“Tell her I’ll be right there,” Peter yelled at Lee.
“No problem,” he yelled back and soon was lost in the crowd.
Rachel and Wendham were seated in front of Peter and Sophie and soon the ride was filled up. They entered the darkness of the Haunted House ride through
a ripped old sheet with what was supposed to be blood stains.
It was quiet in the darkness. The sounds of the gears and the click clack sound of the rail greeted them. He became aware of the labored breathing by the girls on the ride and some of the guys.
“I don’t know why I go on these things, they scare the hell out of me,” Sophie whispered in his ear. Her hot breath tickling the hair on his nape. Suddenly a fake looking skeleton popped out at us. The girls screamed.
Sophie grabbed his shoulders and clung close to him, he tried not to recoil too much, but he was a tad uncomfortable, something that’d been happening way too often lately. The ride started going faster and faster. It jerked to the left pushing Sophie even closer.
They went through a veil of fog. A hologram of a spider’s mouth was projected onto a fog screen. They got swallowed. Fire roared out at them all as They went through the fog, and then cool crisp air greeted them as they exited the haunted house, going up a steep incline. The screams of revelers filled Peter’s ears. Sophie still held his arm tight.
They stopped at the apex of the rollercoaster, lingering at the top, and building up anticipation. Peter looked down out at the fair, looking for his friends. He thought he saw them, but he wasn’t too sure. Everyone looked pretty much the same from this height. Suddenly his breath was snatched from him as they flew down the rails.
A giant dragon covered the entrance back in, it barely moved as they flew past it once again entering the haunted house. It unleashed a torrent of flames at the entrance, but the flames dissipated before they could crash into them.
They entered the darkness again. Suddenly a creepy blue flame turned on. It revealed creepy crawlers flying around and crawling on the ceiling. Giant centipedes, bats, and yellow eyes in the dark. They went through another fog curtain and slowly entered a graveyard scene.
The sounds of owls and dust blowing around was heard over their collective baited breath. Skeletons and witches started flying around, they passed over them, their clothing barely touching them, but close enough to give realism to the creepy landscape. The gravestones were suddenly uprooted in the creepy darkness and corpses started rising up. They gave chase to the rollercoaster as it propelled the, further and further ahead. Suddenly a tree fell in front of them. The rollercoaster slammed on its brakes and the zombies got closer and closer. The girls screamed and people start to question the reality of the situation in their murmuring tones.
The Complete Creeping Darkness Page 4