Darkness Wakes

by Tim Waggoner

  There were two people in the car.

  The headlights flicked off, the driver’s door opened, and Caroline Langdon got out of the Lexus.

  “Hi, Kristen. It’s good to see you again.” The words were friendly, but the tone was ice-cold.

  The passenger door opened and Caroline’s husband Phillip stepped out. “Howdy, neighbor. Long time, no see.”

  Kristen was trying to figure out what the hell was going on when she discovered that her earlier assumption was wrong. There weren’t just two people in the car; there were four. Two others emerged from the back of the Lexus, a board-shouldered man with a facial tic and a woman was one blood-red eye. Kristen had never seen either of them before. The four started toward her, Caroline and Phillip in the lead.

  “We’d hoped to surprise you when you were sleeping,” Caroline said.

  “But that’s okay,” Phillip added. “This way will be more fun.”

  Kristen’s instincts screamed a warning and she made a dash for the kitchen door. Unfortunately, she didn’t move fast enough. Phillip caught hold of her easily, spun her around, grabbed hold of her wrists with one hand and then shoved them against the small of her back. The pain made her draw in a hiss of breath, but before she could let it out, Phillip’s other hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled, trying to break free of his grip, but Phillip was too strong.

  Caroline stepped close to Kristen, leaned forward and spoke softly in her ear. “I’ve always thought you were attractive, Kristin. I can’t wait to taste you.” She slid her tongue into Kristen’s ear and slowly circled it around. Kristen shuddered in revulsion and Phillip laughed.

  The other man, the one with the facial tic, said, “You two stay here. Gillian and I will go inside and get the kids.” The man and the woman stepped around the three of them and entered Kristen’s house through the open door.

  Kristen fought harder to get away from Phillip. Whatever these people wanted, whatever they might have done to her husband, she couldn’t let them harm her children. But as she struggled, Caroline reached out with both hands, pinched her nipples through the fabric of her robe, and twisted hard. Phillip’s hand muffled Kristen’s cry of pain.

  “Don’t resist,” Caroline said.

  “Unless it turns you on,” Phillip amended. “Then by all means, go ahead. I know I like it.”

  Caroline continued. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to use you as bait.” Caroline still had hold of Kristen’s nipples, and now she began to roll them roughly between her forefingers and thumbs. “Your husband has been a very naughty boy, Kristen. Now, normally we like naughty …”

  “We do indeed,” Phillip said. He pressed his crotch against the back of Kristen’s leg and she could feel his erection through his pants.

  “But Aaron’s been especially naughty,” Caroline said. “He needs to be punished, but we don’t know where he is. We need something to make him come back to us.”

  Phillip began grinding his cock against her leg. “Something like you and your kids.”

  Caroline smiled then went back to work on Kristen’s ear while her husband continued dry-humping their captive’s leg. Unable to do anything else, Kristen began to cry.

  Aaron stumbled and nearly fell as he negotiated the house’s sunken front porch. But he managed to maintain his footing, open the front door — which wasn’t locked, thank God — and run inside. He immediately shut the door behind him and threw the deadbolt. A second later, something heavy slammed into the door, and Aaron knew his pursuers had caught up with him.

  “Come out of there, Aaron!” Gerald yelled. He pounded his fist on the door three times in rapid succession, almost as if he were knocking. “You need to tell us what you know!”

  “Fuck off, you sick sonofabitch!” Aaron shouted. “I don’t care about you, Penumbra, or the goddamned Overshadow! Just leave me the fuck alone!”

  Gerald started pounding on the door again, harder this time. Aaron backed away, wishing he had a cell phone so he could call the police, but he hated carrying his cell around and usually left it in the glove box of his Lexus. No 911 calls for him. Unless …

  A much louder crash came from the door, and Aaron guessed Gerald had thrown the full weight of his considerable bulk at it. He knew a simple deadbolt wouldn’t hold out against Gerald for long, and there was an excellent chance the man’s fellow dements were right now searching for other ways into the house. Aaron knew he couldn’t afford to stand around. He turned and started making his way through the house. It was dark and precious little light filtered in from outside. But Aaron’s enhanced night vision was enough to allow him to discern the basic layout of the house. Even so, he kept his hand on the wall to guide himself as he moved forward.

  The house appeared to have been deserted for some time. Much of the furniture had been draped with sheets, while other pieces had been overturned or were in sorry states of disrepair. The floors were littered with trash, and Aaron had to move carefully. Most of it appeared to be fast-food wrappers from a variety of restaurants, but there were occasional pieces of bone and bits of meat — rotting meat from the smell and the flies. Aaron wanted to believe the meat and bones weren’t human, but he saw no reason to delude himself at this point. He assumed this house, the barn, and the surrounding property were part of Caroline’s parents’ real estate holdings, as were the Valley View Shopping Center and the land where the pit was located. And judging from the condition of the interior, Aaron guessed this was where the dements came to kick back and take a load off after a hard day of making collage art out of dead bodies. Aaron wondered if Caroline was aware this place existed. Probably not, he decided, or else she and the other Insiders would’ve come here by now, captured the dements, and given them to the Overshadow.

  Aaron was heading toward what he hoped was the kitchen. Since the house had running water and electricity — witness both the fluorescent light pole and the work lights in the barn — then there was a chance that there might be a working phone, too. Not much of a chance: the water probably came from a well and the electricity from a portable generator. The dements were crazy, but they were also cunning. They’d avoided being caught by Caroline and the others, not to mention the police, while they went about creating their obscene “offering” to the Overshadow. It was possible they’d found a way to keep a working phone line out here. Maybe not likely, but possible. And right now that possibility was all he had.

  He found the kitchen at the back of the house. The air was thick with a truly horrendous stink, but after smelling the hellish stench of the Tapestry, this was like inhaling the aroma of prize roses. The trash was piled up in mounds on the floor here, and the sink was filled with a foul-smelling brackish liquid that, if it ever was water, wasn’t anymore. Roaches scuttled away at his approach, along with more than a few mice and rats. But Aaron was a vet and vermin didn’t bother him. Hell, after what he’d seen tonight, he wondered if anything would ever truly bother him again.

  There was a back door. Aaron checked and found it unlocked; a situation he quickly remedied. No deadbolt here, just an ordinary lock built into the doorknob. He hoped it would hold long enough. He looked around the kitchen then, hoping to find a phone mounted on a wall. That was where his family had kept their phone when he’d been a kid, and the house seemed old enough to be the same way. There’d be no wireless phones or cells here.

  “And just who do you think you’re going to call?”

  There — mounted on the wall next to the refrigerator — an old-style black rotary dial phone.

  Aaron started toward it, but his father said, “At least get some kind of weapon first in case those lunatics manage to get in before your fingers are finished doing the walking.”

  Aaron glanced in his father’s direction. The old man was sitting at the kitchen table. The surface was piled with soiled paper plates. Numerous tiny scavengers skittered across the plates as they searched for even the smallest scrap of deliciously rotten nourishment. Martin seeme
d not to notice them.

  “Good idea,” Aaron acknowledged. He hurried to the counter near the stove and began rummaging through drawers. It only took him a moment to find a large, wicked-looking butcher knife. The blade was stained — with what, Aaron didn’t want to know — but it looked sharp enough to do the job. Aaron gripped the handle tight in his right hand and walked over to the phone. He took the receiver off the hook, put it to his ear, and was equally surprised and relieved to hear a dial tone. He tucked the receiver into the crook of his neck and started dealing with his free hand. 9-1-1.

  “You’re wasting your time,” the apparition of Martin Rittinger said. “You should be outside where you can run and hide.”

  “They have to be stopped, Dad. Didn’t you see that damned thing in the barn? Don’t you realize how many people they killed to make it? And don’t think they’ll ever stop, because they won’t. They can’t.” Aaron might’ve said more, but someone on the other end picked up and asked him to state the nature of his emergency.

  “People have been murdered and their bodies left in a barn. The address is 1783 Hoke Road. Please hurry.” Aaron hung up before the police dispatcher could ask him any questions.

  “So you caught the address when Gerald pulled into the driveway,” Martin said.

  Aaron nodded. “I saw a road sign along the way, and the number was painted on the mailbox. It was faint, but I could read it.”

  “So now what are you going to do?”

  Before Aaron could answer his father, someone started pounding on the back door. The blows weren’t as loud as Gerald’s, so Aaron knew it was one of the other dements. Maybe Bone-Braids or Caroline’s dad.

  “Now I try to avoid the dements while I wait for the cops to get here. After I make one more call.” He turned back to the phone, picked up the receiver once more, and began dialing again

  “Don’t be an idiot, son. You’ve been lucky so far, but these old doors won’t keep them out forever.”

  “I know, but there’s a good chance I may not live through the night. I need to talk to Kristen one last time, just in case I don’t make it.

  Aaron thought his father might protest again, tell him that he was allowing sentiment to override his common sense. But all his father said was, “I understand.” And when Aaron glanced over at the kitchen table, Martin Rittinger was no longer there.

  Aaron finished dialing and listened for the ringing of his home phone. More pounding on the door then, louder this time, and Aaron — still holding on the butcher knife — pressed the heel of his left hand over his other ear to shut out the noise.

  One ring … two … three …

  They kept a phone on the nightstand next to their bed, and though Aaron wasn’t sure of the exact time, he was confident Kristen would still be asleep.

  Four rings … five …

  He mentally urged her to pick up, as if he could send thought waves to his wife over the phone line and wake her. He just wanted to hear the sound of her voice once more, tell her that he loved her and the kids, tell her how very sorry he was.

  Five rings, six, followed by a click.

  “Hello, Kristen? It’s me, I — ” He broke off as he realized the answering machine had kicked in. He expected to hear the sound of his voice since he was the one who’d recorded the outgoing message. Kristen got performance anxiety whenever she tried to make one. But the voice he heard was a woman’s, and it didn’t belong to Kristen.

  “ — paid a visit to your darling family. They were surprised to see us but were gracious enough to forgive the lateness of the hour. They also did us the honor of accepting an invitation to our favorite playground. We’ll all be waiting for you there. Hope you can join us. Oh, and by the way, don’t bother stopping here to check if I’m telling the truth. All you’ll find is a note saying the same thing I’ve just told you. I have faith that you will join us, love. You aren’t real good with the delayed gratification thing. It’s one of your most delightful qualities. See you soon.” Then came the sound of smacking lips, as if Caroline were giving him a kiss, followed by a beep. Aaron paused for a moment and then hung up.

  It was all his fault. Kristen, Colin, and Lindsay had been abducted by Caroline and the others, all because he’d been foolish enough — and selfish enough — to become involved with that group of lunatics. The question before him now was what, if anything, he could do to save his family. If he did as Caroline said and went to Penumbra, he was certain they’d kill him, probably by sacrificing him to the Overshadow, and they’d do the same to Kristen and the kids. He had to come up with an alternative plan, and he had to do it fast before —

  He heard a crash as the front door gave way, followed by the pounding of feet as people ran through the house toward the kitchen. Before they could reach him, the back door exploded inward, and Caroline’s father stepped inside, holding the sledgehammer he’d used to break in. Bone-Braids followed him inside. Aaron turned and saw Gerald and Toothless enter from the outer hall. He was trapped. He gripped the handle of the butcher knife tight. Aside from Caroline’s dad, none of the dements carried any weapons. He considered fighting his way out, and he almost gave it a shot, but a simple realization stopped him. If he wanted to save Kristen and the kids, he was going to need help — and if Caroline and the other Insiders believed that he was working with the dements, then maybe he should go ahead and do so.

  He turned to face Gerald, hoping the man was so insane he’d forget Aaron’s earlier protests that he knew nothing of value to them. “You brought me here to tell you what I know about Penumbra, but that’s not why I came. I bring you a message from the Overshadow itself.”

  Aaron paused to see if the dements were buying it. They were frowning, but none advanced toward him. He’d gotten their attention.

  “The Overshadow is aware of your great offering. You have not only proven yourself worthy of returning to Penumbra, you’ve proven yourselves more worthy of being its caretakers than those who cast you out. The Overshadow wishes you to reclaim Penumbra for yourselves. The time for war has come, and the Overshadow has sent me to lead you into battle. Are you prepared to follow me?”

  Aaron held his breath while he waited to see whether the dements would believe his bullshit or would come rushing at him to tear him to shreds with their hands and teeth. Several moments went by, and then finally Caroline’s father grinned.

  “We are,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “It’ll be morning soon.”

  Aaron glanced over at Gerald. The man rubbed his bald head with one hand while he steered the Volkswagen with the other. The Beetle didn’t have a functioning dashboard clock, and the dement didn’t wear a watch. Aaron looked out the windshield, but he detected no trace of the coming dawn: clouds had rolled in and the sky appeared black as pitch. Maybe Gerald reckoned time using some sort of primitive instinct. If so, Aaron wished he possessed a similar faculty. Right now, he wasn’t confident the dawn would ever come.

  They were driving on Route 8, heading for town. Behind them, riding in an ancient beat-up green Oldsmobile, followed the rest of the dements. Caroline’s father was driving, and though the man — whose name was Hayden — was insane, he handled the vehicle well enough. Which was a good thing because the car was so old that ever since they’d left the Homestead, Aaron had been waiting for the death-trap to blow a tire, throw a rod, or drop its transmission. Maybe all three. But so far the Olds had kept up with the Beetle, and with some luck it might make it all the way to the Valley View Shopping Center. Aaron hoped so. They could never fit everyone inside Gerald’s VW if the Olds broke down.

  “At least you had room for me,” Martin Rittinger said from the back seat.

  Aaron gave Gerald a quick look. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the man was crazy enough to somehow perceive Martin. But the dement kept driving, his gaze focused on the road ahead as he continued rubbing his raw scalp. He’d started rubbing it the moment they drove away from the farm and hadn’t stopped si
nce. Obviously, he was both excited and nervous about the battle to come. Aaron wondered that if Gerald kept rubbing, would he finally wear away the last of his scalp and reveal the white bone of the skull underneath?

  Not that Aaron could blame Gerald. He was pretty nervous himself. And his head still itched from having been smeared with the viscous goo in the pit. Watching Gerald rub his scalp just made Aaron’s itch all the more. It took a huge effort of will to keep from scratching. He guessed he’d already lost half his own hair, and he’d rather not lose any more if he could avoid it. He decided not to worry about it; he had slightly more important things to concern him, like whether he’d survive the night.

  The interior of the VW was dark. A few moments after getting into the car, Aaron had rammed his fist into the flickering dome light and broken its plastic cover, along with the tiny light bulb inside. They couldn’t afford to have the malfunctioning dome light draw attention to them as they approached Penumbra. Besides, the goddamned flickering thing annoyed the piss out of Aaron.

  He reached up and brushed some stray strands of fallen hair off his shoulder. He was no longer shirtless or shoeless. The dements had provided him with a filthy flannel shirt and a pair of worn sneakers with holes in them. Nasty, but serviceable. The cloth — which had likely once belonged to one of the dements’ victims — stank and the shirt made his chest and back itch almost as bad as his scalp. But he didn’t pay much attention to this sensation, and he avoided scratching, afraid that once he got started, he wouldn’t stop until he’d clawed deep furrows in his flesh.