by Tim Waggoner
“After he … left Penumbra, I never heard from him again. I’d come to think he’d died, either by his own hand or old age. I never considered that he’d joined the dements.”
“He didn’t just join them,” Aaron said. He still held the gun on Caroline, and his back was now turned on the door to the Overshadow’s chamber. “He was their founder and leader, just as he was here.”
A small smile crossed Caroline’s lips. “At least he made it back inside, if only partway.”
Aaron was about to reply, but then the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He spun around and fired.
Gillian held Bone-Braids’ hand-scythe. She’d snuck up on Aaron and had been in the process of raising the weapon to strike. Aaron’s shot had struck her crimson-tinted eye, but instead of being reduced to jelly, the organ shattered as if it were made of glass and a shaft of bright red light shone forth. Gillian’s body jerked as if she were being electrocuted, and the beam stabbed past Caroline’s head — just missing her — through the open doorway, and out into the darkness of the night. Then the beam winked out, and Gillian fell to the floor and lay still.
Aaron spun around to cover Caroline, but she’d made no move to attack him. Instead she was looking at him with smoldering lust in her gaze.
“The others are gone now, Aaron. All of them. There are no more Insiders, no more dements. Just you and me.” She started walking slowly toward him, moving with predatory grace. “But we still have the Overshadow. We could start over, just the two of us. We wouldn’t have to share the Overshadow with anyone else. It would be all ours, its pleasures reserved for us alone.”
She came within two feet of Aaron, but he didn’t lower the gun.
“You’re the one who caused all this.” Aaron gestured with his free hand at the bodies surrounding them. “You wanted to kill me because you thought I was allied with the dements, and now you want to be lovers again?”
Caroline shrugged. “Can’t a girl change her mind?”
“What about my family?”
“What about them? We can’t let them live, of course. They know too much now. They’re already in the back, bound and gagged with duct tape. All we have to do is move them inside the Overshadow’s circle and it will all be over with. And then our new life can begin, Aaron. Just you and me, together forever.”
Aaron looked into Caroline’s eyes and saw the madness glittering within them. It called to his own madness, but though it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, he resisted its lure.
“I want to see my family. Let’s go. He gestured with the gun to indicate Caroline should precede him.
She bowed her head. “If that’s what you want.” Then she turned and started walking toward the Overshadow’s chamber.
Aaron followed, gun barrel pointed at the space directly between Caroline’s shoulder blades. If she so much as twitched, he’d fire.
They entered the back room, and stepped into cold darkness. Now Aaron could see almost as well as if it were full daylight in here. He saw the black mass of the Overshadow rising forth from within the circle of its concrete prison. And lying before it — well inside the circle’s perimeter — lay three withered husks, each bound with duct tape at the wrists and ankles. There was no tape over their mouths, though, despite Caroline’s earlier claim. Each mouth was stretched wide in a silent, frozen scream.
Aaron stared at the corpses of his family. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised to find them dead, and on one level he wasn’t. But the sight nevertheless came as a shock to him. He raised the 9mm to his head, intending to press the barrel to his temple and fire. But before he could, he felt a pair of hands slam into his back and shove him forward. He stumbled, dropping the gun as he crossed over the thin circle carved into the concrete floor.
He fell onto Kristen’s body and felt her brittle bones snap to kindling beneath his weight. Horrified, he flung himself off of his wife’s corpse and fell backward onto Colin and Lindsay’s. More bones broke, and he sobbed as he tried to scuttle away from the desiccated remains of his children. He came close to the circle’s edge, but before he could cross back to the other side, a dark pseudopod emerged from the Overshadow’s side and shot toward him. The tentacle encircled his left wrist and held him tight, preventing him from escaping. He hissed in pain as he tried without success to pull free. The Overshadow’s touch was so cold that it burned. Aaron wasn’t afraid to die, though. How could he be when he’d been prepared to end his own life a few moments earlier? He deserved what was about to happen to him, and no matter how much it hurt, it could never be as painful as the knowledge of what had happened to his family as a result of his betrayal.
Caroline laughed. “Well, lover, it looks like I’m going to be the sole member of Penumbra soon. But don’t worry; I plan to have a ball starting over.” She walked up to the circle’s edge and stopped, ready to accept the Overshadow’s gratitude after it finished with its latest sacrifice. “Goodbye, Aaron. It’s been fun.”
Aaron opened his mouth to shout obscenities at her, but a second tendril of darkness slithered inside and wormed its way down his throat. Coldfire erupted through every cell of his being as the Overshadow prepared to begin leeching away his lifeforce on a microscopic level. The agony was far beyond any pain he’d ever known or imagined could exist, and his only comfort came from knowing that it wouldn’t last long.
Then Aaron became aware of another presence inside his mind, and he remembered feeling the same sensation the previous two times he’d experienced the Overshadow’s touch. He’d felt then as if the Overshadow was trying to communicate with him somehow, but he hadn’t been able to tell what it wanted. Now, inside the circle, their contact so much stronger and more intimate than before, Aaron thought he understood what the Overshadow was saying.
You are strong, and you are more than good enough. You are worthy.
And then the Overshadow asked Aaron a question, and Aaron told it yes.
Caroline was so full of excitement that she could barely stand still. The Insiders hadn’t received the Overshadow’s blessing after it had drained Aaron’s family, and now that it was draining Aaron himself, that meant it would have fed on four lives. Since none of the others survived, that meant she alone would get the full undiluted measure of the Overshadow’s gratitude for tonight’s four sacrifices. She didn’t know if she’d be able to withstand such pleasure. It might well kill her, but if it did, it did. As she’d told Aaron in Deja Brew, ultimate pleasure was worth any price, including her own life.
She watched as the Overshadow reached down Aaron’s throat, beginning the process of feeding. She waited to see smaller tendrils emerge from Aaron’s ears, nostrils, his pores … but none did. She frowned, sensing that something was wrong but unsure what. Then she realized that the Overshadow had grown smaller, perhaps by as much as a foot or more. She looked closer and, though it was difficult to tell from the Overshadow’s ebon surface, it appeared that it was continuing to flow into Aaron’s mouth, almost as if it were pouring itself into him. The Overshadow wasn’t feeding on Aaron; in some strange way, he was feeding on it.
Caroline watched in horrified fascination as the main body of the Overshadow continued to shrink as it flowed into Aaron’s body. Aaron showed no sign that the process alarmed or pained him. He sat still as the Overshadow did its work, and no matter how much of its dark substance entered Aaron, his body didn’t increase in size one bit. But then it wouldn’t, would it? Caroline thought. Darkness — true darkness — had no volume or weight. It simply was.
When it was nearly over and all that remained visible of the Overshadow was a wriggling tentacle hanging out of Aaron’s mouth, he stood. The tendril disappeared down his throat as quickly and easily as if he’d slurped up a piece of black spaghetti, and then the Overshadow was gone.
Aaron smiled at her, and she saw that his eyes had become twin pools of swirling darkness. She remembered how her parents had described the nameless man in the yellowed suit who’d given them the infant
Overshadow — remembered that he’d had similarly dark eyes — and she shuddered.
“You were all fools,” Aaron said. His voice was calm, relaxed, as if he were merely making small talk. “Any one of you might’ve become the Overshadow’s avatar, but your lust and gluttony made you deaf to its voice. Made you unworthy.”
Aaron stepped toward her and Caroline instinctively backed away. He crossed the circle’s boundary with hesitation, whatever mystic power it held useless against him. Or perhaps the circle had never possessed any power at all, and the Overshadow had merely remained inside while it grew and waited for a suitable host to arrive.
“It’s really too bad you missed out on this,” Aaron said. He continued to advance, the darkness in his eyes pulsing with each step. “It’s the most wondrous feeling … like being a god.” He cocked his head to the side, as if reconsidering his words. “No, better than that. The concept of god is too limited. We are Darkness.”
Caroline screamed and turned to run, but Aaron opened his mouth and a vast ebon wave rushed forward to engulf her, and when it receded, she was gone, without even a withered corpse to indicate she’d ever existed at all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Aaron sat behind the wheel of the Ford Sierra van. He was driving on Route 70, heading east toward the Ohio state line, Ptolemy left far behind. He wasn’t exactly sure yet where he was headed, but that was all right. He’d figure it out — they’d figure it out — soon enough.
“Everybody doing okay?” he asked. He caught a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. His hair had grown back, and his eyes looked normal, though perhaps the pupils were somewhat larger and darker than before.
“Just fine, sweetheart,” Kristen said.
He smiled at his wife, the turned to glance at the backseat. “How about you two? Either of you getting hungry yet?”
“I’m fine, Dad. But thanks for asking,” Colin said. He’d found his manners in the last few days, and Aaron was pleased. It looked like his boy was on his way to becoming a man.
“I’m cold,” Linsday said. “Can you turn up the heat?”
Though it had to be ninety degrees outside, Aaron said, “Sure thing, pumpkin.” A slim tendril of darkness emerged from his right nostril, whipped toward the heating controls, adjusted the temperature higher, then retreated back into Aaron’s body as quickly as it had appeared.
“Better?”
“Much. Thanks, Daddy.”
“No problem.” Aaron settled back into his seat, feeling truly happy for the first time in years. Part of it was because he’d decided to simplify their lives — leave behind his practice, the house, his Lexus … It wasn’t like they’d be needing these things anymore, not with the work they had to do. The Insiders had misused the dark gift they’d been given. The Overshadow’s glory was too great to be hoarded. It should be shared with everyone, everywhere. And that’s just what Aaron and his family were going to do.
Still, everything wasn’t perfect. Sure, he had his family back, thanks to the Overshadow. What it took, it could restore — to a degree. But it would have been nice if the dark power that now dwelled within him had been able to do something about the smell.
“Any idea where we’re going yet?” Kristen asked. The movement of her jaw caused her upper lip to detach on one side, and the gray flap of flesh dangled from the corner of her mouth. Good thing Aaron had done plenty of suturing during his years as a vet. He’d stitch Kristen’s lip back on when they stopped for the night.
An image appeared in Aaron’s mind then, a vast metropolis of gleaming silver buildings stretching toward a dead black sky, and he felt the Overshadow’s hunger stir within him.
“New York.” He smiled, and shadows moved behind his teeth. “For starters.”
Other Tim Waggoner eBooks Available from Crossroad Press
PANDORA DRIVE
The small town of Zephyr, Ohio, is home to a very special young woman. Damara is quiet, reclusive—and she has the ability to make other people's dreams, fears, and fantasies all too real. But this isn't an ability that she can control, as many people in town are beginning to learn. For some, dreams are becoming living nightmares. For others, their deepest fears are suddenly alive and worse than they ever imagined.
As Damara’s powers sweep like wildfire through the town, her neighbors’ long-hidden desires and secret wishes are dragged out into the open—and given life. But as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, because in this case…it could kill you.