The Complete Creeping Darkness

by Greyson, Quinn

  “Well, do you even want her that bad? Does she want you that bad? Is it even worth worrying about?” He questioned him, thinking maybe he could loosen lee’s grip on Olivia, “Have you ever wondered when we cease to be the person we were and when we’re reborn into the person we are?”

  “I try not to worry about such trivial matters like life and death. It is what it is. We are what we are and no amount of worry or nail biting is going to change that.”

  “Ahh Japanese wisdom right?”

  Lee shrugged and hacked at a tree.

  “It’s just weird, one day we’re carefree high school students, the next we’re trained killers patrolling a dying forest. How do we become totally new entities?” Lee questioned.

  “Are you having an existential crisis?” Lee asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “It just happens, like puberty. One day you have hair where you didn’t have hair the day before.”

  Peter laughed.

  “You must miss Maddie,” Lee snuck in.

  Peter nodded in the darkness.

  “She had quite the wit. She’d have better suited to answer a question like that. She was a smart cat,” Peter said feeling lonely again.

  “I bet she would have loved this. She was organized,” Lee said reminiscing.

  “Yeah, this world would have belonged to her.”

  “Did she see this coming?” Lee asked.

  “Something like it. I don’t think anyone needed a crystal ball to see that we were reaching a tipping point. She knew we couldn’t sustain our lifestyles. Something has to give, she’d say.”

  “Well she wasn’t too far off.”

  “True. Are you enjoying this?” He asked him.

  Lee smirked.

  “And what kind of person would I be if I said yes?”

  “An honest one,” he said smirking as well.

  “I’m a military man, it was a mistake for my father to send me to a prep school. But as with many from his generation they are so, no offense, in love with American culture. My generation too though, but my father should have known better. But this, this I was born for. People need people like me, so that they can enjoy their nine to five lives. I mean, remember before all this, do you know the stuff my father and your family did to people, just so the average Joe could wake up and go to their mind numbing work and not get killed?”

  Peter nodded in agreement.

  Lee looked over at him. “Maybe we both are.”

  “Maybe.” Peter laughed a little. “But then would God forgive us? Don’t you think this is the apocalypse?”

  He shrugged. “No. Close though. More of an opening salvo.”

  “But you think this will pass and we’ll see sunshine again?”

  Lee nodded in the maddening dark. “I do.”

  The pulse quickening sound of a Night Crawler infected the still of the night. They both froze in their tracks and killed the flashlights. They looked around and from above they could hear the flapping of insect wings, large insect wings. A swarm of night Dragons flew over top of the tree line. The two guys crouched down.

  “Call it in. Tell them to kill the lights,” Peter ordered.

  Lee did as he was asked as quietly as he could. He remembered reading somewhere, that praying mantises could see colors that humans couldn’t even see. He wondered how well they could see in the dark.

  “We might have starved them into attacking,” Lee suggested.

  “Or those bloody fireworks alerted them last night,” Peter said and started walking. “We can’t let them attack the forest; it’s so dead and dry that it’d go up just like that.”

  Lee stuck his hand out to stop him.

  A Night Crawler hissed at us in the cool crisp air. Apparently not cold enough for them not to stay at home though. The creature was close; He could hear its crunching sound as it walked through the forest of dried snapping twigs.

  Then he could see it, its antennas probing the air, looking for fresh bodies to bring back to its lair. He held his breath just as sure as Lee did. He could shoot it, but I’d run the risk of bringing attention to them. It moved closer.

  Peter wondered if they could smell the two of them, he wasn’t sure. He slowly reached for his sword, ready to strike when he saw a glint of moonlight reflecting off Lee’s sword as it swung for the creature. Its head fell with nary a sound. Lee caught the body and gently placed it on the ground. Lee looked at him and he pointed ahead. They saw hundreds, maybe thousands of the damn things heading straight for them. Peter jumped up on a branch, praying that it’d hold his weight, it did. Lee did the same. The creatures came buzzing past them and their dead comrade.

  Peter’s stomach knotted, not only for the inevitable showdown at the school, but for all the people in the world. In the big cities, in the small towns, kids who just didn’t understand why their deepest nightmares had just come to life.

  Peter knew they were the lucky ones, hidden so far away, but now, not so. Even then they’d only had minimum contact before this and yet so many had already died. He briefly wondered if we’d be able to eat them. Didn’t some people eat these things? One day I’d make a point of finding out.

  It didn’t hurt a lot. Just another gash running down the left side of his scalp, down around his eye socket, past his mouth to his jaw bone. But it’d leave a hell of a scar. He always wondered about people with scars. He always wondered if they exaggerated the moment or not. Like if they cut themselves shaving and claimed it was a knife to their throat. It always seemed like a moment of heroics. Whether a soldier saving a little girl in Iraq or in Afghanistan; fighting the Taliban, or the everyday man in civilian clothing as a firefighter saving innocents, or his comrades, from the heat of a burning building. It was always heroic in recollection even if the average Joe was scared beyond belief and just shielded his face from the attacker, but as long as you walk away and you got something to say you fought, then you’re as good as a hero. Peter wondered if his private tale would be truthful. He already knew the public tale would be spun out of control, heroically idolized, assuming he stayed alive long enough to receive the adoration.

  It was stupid, the reason he was cut, he had emptied his gun at approaching Night Crawlers, after he and Lee were separated, he pulled his sword and a stupid Night Crawler jumped at him causing him to lose his grip on his sword and let the blade run down his face. Not too heroic, especially in times like this, but he still managed to kill it.

  Chapter 17

  Peter stood at the school now, contemplating whether or not entering was his best option. They had been only using the school for the industrial part of their little society.

  He wondered how long before the Night Crawlers realized where their food really was. They obviously had a nest in their hole, but did they live in their hole or did they go deep down into a bigger habitat? Peter wondered if that meant there were thousands of queens just cranking these suckers out, or just one giant Lovecraftian queen? Whatever they did, he wished Maddie was here, she’d know. Or maybe Olivia would know, she was pretty smart in her own way.

  The clatter of the Night Crawler’s feet and wings pulled him from his stupor as he stared at the entrance of the school. It was dark, dark as any horror movie or bad dream. This made him think that no matter what he did that there would be death involved.

  How the hell did he go from being on a yacht to running for his life? Even being yelled at by the Head Master would beat this.

  He turned and looked around. Suddenly all the lights went out. Either Lee got to it, or someone else finally realized what was going on. He turned back and entered the school.

  Little red emergency lights made the hollowed school halls all the more ominous.

  He went down a hallway, trophies and banners reflected the red flashing lights, realizing how useless they were and how unfair it was to think like that. It shouldn’t be useless, Peter bitterly thought. We should be enjoying summer vacation right now instead of bunkering down dealing with snow and giant
ugly bugs!

  A hand grabbed at Peter, he spun around quickly pulling his sword, ready to slice.

  “Hey! Whoa!” an accented voice said, “Calm down there brother,” Wendham said.

  “Jesus Wendham, you know you scared the hell out of me? And you almost lost an arm.”

  “Aye and how do you think I feel wandering around in the dark here?”

  “Yeah, alright.”

  “Come on man! Let’s find a safer place.”

  Wendham led Peter into his old science class.

  “Nice to see you out and about,” a female voice said to him in the total blackness of the classroom.

  “Rachel?”

  “The one and the same,” she answered. He could picture her saying that and opening her arms like a showroom model.

  “What the hell are you guys doing here? Didn’t you get the message? Everybody should be down in the basement.”

  “We’re not children that we run and hide from our master, I’d like to think we’re a little beyond that,” Wendham said defiantly, his voice and attitude had changed. He had a lot more of an edge to his voice. He was a self described limey rebel. Despite his smarts, he always said if he wasn’t a scientist or a doctor he was going to be a full time soccer hooligan. “Yeah, we got it, but we had better things up here to do. Your doctor of death asked us to work on a bug repellent. And lord knows what would happen if we failed.”

  “I bet you’ve got the blitz mentality anyhow don’t ya Wendham.”

  “Bloody right I do. It’s in my blood! My daddy and my granddaddy had a bloody barbecue while the krauts were droppin’ bombs on us. But we gave ‘em hell! And this ain’t no different.”

  “Yeah, but you lost your empire,” Peter said sarcastically.

  “Yeah we bloody sacrifice everything for the world and you yanks and the ruskies point bombs after we bleed. If it wasn’t for us and the Queen we’d be hiding in the dark speaking deutsch,” Wendham countered.

  “We are not getting into this,” Peter said. Lee had given Peter enough fill with the revisionist history, “So what are you guys doing here?”

  Silence added to the oppression of the darkness. And then the sounds of the Night Crawlers walking through the hall added a nice spine tingle on top of that.

  “Well?” He asked again hoping to force the point.

  “We’ve been working on something,” Rachel said.

  “Rachel!” Wendham warned.

  “We can trust him. It’s Pete.”

  “About?” Peter asked.

  “Like we said we’re working on a pesticide,” Rachel continued.

  “But we don’t want it stolen,” Wendham said.

  “Why would I steal it?” Peter asked defensively, after all he was their leader.

  “We don’t know what Olivia would do, but she’d probably steal our thunder and give it to herself or you,” Rachel explained.

  “I wouldn’t… I only want these things dead.”

  “Peter that’s easy to say when you’re in charge, you’d almost get automatic credit. But we’ve put a lot of effort towards this.”

  “And I agree. I wouldn’t have even thought of a gas or pesticide.”

  The sad thing was that he understood what they were saying. Be it Olivia or someone else, the issue could be spun whatever way they wanted it to. The truth would always be an afterthought.

  “Not to mention we haven’t tested it,” Wendham said.

  “Well I can’t imagine a better time. We’ve got a school full of the bloody things.”

  “We haven’t tested it,” Wendham said again. “We don’t know what’ll happen. They could shrug it off and maybe even make them mad.”

  He sat down at a desk that he could barely see. He suddenly had grand schemes in his head. They could wipe these bastards out and then re-take the town, then bomb their hole and then save the country, possibly the world.

  A yell interrupted his thoughts.

  “Outside,” Rachel whispered as her invisible hands opened the blinds and peeked out to the darkness outside.

  “They’re in the school,” Peter said.

  “They’re everywhere. How the hell did they find us?” Rachel whispered. “Lee’s out there,” she said. “He’s fighting them.”

  “Lee?” Peter questioned louder than he should have and moved to the window as fast as he could.

  Lee was outside by himself, uniform torn, blood smeared across his face with his grandfather’s samurai sword in his hand. He was pursued by a dozen of the Night Crawlers and this was where it looked like he was having his last stand. A dozen of the Night Crawlers would be enough to kill scores of ordinary people, but hopefully not one pissed teen with a samurai sword.

  Lee put his back to the school, prepared for a final showdown. He tore off the rest of his uniform bearing his chest and took a classical samurai stance. He looked as fierce and menacing as he could. He had his great, great grandfather’s samurai mask and it was terrifying.

  “He’s dead,” Rachel uttered.

  “I have to go help him,” Peter said, fear for his friend coursing through his body.

  Wendham put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Noble gesture no doubt, but you go out those doors, it’ll be for naught, because if we’re discovered, we die too, and in vain,” Wendham said.

  “And if you could somehow get to him, if you die, we’re leaderless, this is one battle he’ll have to fight himself,” Rachel said.

  “But Lee, we can afford to lose?” Peter asked.

  “More so than you,” Rachel answered.

  “He’ll be alright regardless. I have faith in him. He’s a soldier not a leader,” Wendham said.

  “You don’t like him do you? Or Olivia or me?”

  “Pete… we like you well enough, you’ve kept us alive, we don’t need to get into other things, right Blake?”

  Blake nodded.

  He looked at the windows. Unfortunately they were brand new, and virtually unbreakable. There were spots that you could open for fresh air, but only small spots, barely big enough for the odd hand.

  The Night Crawler’s approached Lee cautiously; perhaps they could feel his hatred. He yelled something in Japanese and attacked. He swung his sword in one fluid motion four times and took off four heads. He backed up and struck out again, slicing a few bodies in half and tearing off parts of the Night Crawlers. The creatures took the offensive and attacked. But Lee was a whirling dervish. He hacked and slashed. The exo-skeletons were no match for the skillfully made Japanese steel.

  He separated the last head from the last bug and fell to his knees slamming his blade into the stained earth in prayer. He pulled the blade out and laid it before himself and bowed to it, muttering his prayers and thanking his ancestors.

  Peter turned away from the window. He was on his own for now, just as Lee was. He sat down at a desk, his feelings conflicted. There was going to be an inevitable showdown between them if he decided to pursue Olivia, Peter thought , perhaps it was best if one of them went down fighting the Night Crawlers.

  He slammed his fist on the desk, suddenly mad at everything. He doubted he had the good graces and intestinal fortitude to step aside.

  Was Olivia really worth their friendship? Or perhaps one of our lives? Not to mention the potential fallout affecting all those around them?

  “I’m checking to see if they’re still outside,” Wendham said and headed toward the door. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Peter walked over with Wendham and put his ear to the door. He nodded at Wendham to open it. He slid beside him and looked outside too. Nothing! Empty halls. He closed the door and flipped on the light.

  “Okay, we’re safe for now,” Peter said and surveyed their lab. “Okay. Show me what you’ve got.”

  Wendham and Rachel looked at each other.

  “We can trust him,” Rachel and said and smiled at him.

  Wendham frowned, but walked over to a small clear container containing a green liquid.


  “It’s got the viscosity of water, so it’ll be able to be delivered the same and pumped out anywhere water is. Now I know you’re not a scientist so I’ll try to lay this out in the simplest terms.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate the gesture, but I’m sure I can keep up.”

  “No problem mate. Herbicides kill plants, pesticides kill bugs. But usually only small and unseen bugs. Obviously we’re not dealing with little mites are we? So one day when I was spraying the plants downstairs, an idea came to him. And then, just by chance, Olivia came to him asking about gases. I said I’d look into it. But I’m sure it’s in development in other places, but that’s hardly an excuse not to make it here right?” Wendham explained.

  “Usually pesticides are deadly to humans, so we’re trying to make it human friendly,” Rachel added.

  “But I’m guessing that’s next to impossible?” Peter asked.

  Wendham nodded along with Rachel.

  “So everything is basically untested.”

  Peter saw some gas masks.

  “Is the school empty?”

  “I think so,” Rachel said. “A couple others who were working on weapons came to us, saying they were going to the dorms, but obviously we stayed.”

  He picked up the gas masks.

  “So let’s try it out.”

  “It’s untested.”

  “Okay, here’s our plan, we kill the power. Put on the masks and fumigate the school. You do have a delivery system right?” Peter asked.

  They looked at each other.

  “We’ve been using spray bottles and water guns.” Rachel said proudly. Wendham looked a little meek.

  Peter rubbed his face and his eyes.

  “Sure you were, why not.”

  “Hey if it wasn’t for your damn crusade we’d have Yale at our disposal. We’d probably made weapons already. But no, instead you kill everyone!” Wendham exploded.

  Peter walked over to Wendham and looked him over.

  “Is this suppose to intimidate me?”

  “No, I don’t need to intimidate you, but I do need your respect!” Peter said and punched him in the stomach.

  Wendham doubled over, quickly recovered and threw a punch at Peter. Peter stepped back, letting the punch whiz past his face. Peter caught the next punch and twisted Wendham’s arm until he fell to the ground. Peter put his knee on the back of Wendham’s head.