by Paul A. Rice
‘Those little black dots are the Darkness!’ she said. ‘They are what the spaces in between are made of, everything you assume to be made of nothing, is in fact made up of their never-ending advance. The Darkness surrounds us, it is in us every moment of the day and night – it is around us all of the time. It passes through us constantly. In fact, it is passing through us now as we speak.’ She laughed as both Junior and Mikey held their hands up to the sky and peered at them closely.
It was the obvious reaction to the receipt of such news, but the funny faces the young men pulled whilst doing their impromptu search for some invisible particles, which by all accounts were presently shooting through their hands, like buckshot through toilet paper, still made Tori laugh out loud.
‘Honestly, you two!’ she said, and then giggled girlishly. Tori shook her head and looked at the others in despair, saying: ‘They just can’t take anything seriously, can they?’ She grinned and then returned to the subject at hand.
‘The point I am trying to make, is that we all saw those particles passing through the grain of sand,’ she said. ‘And yet, because we cannot see them with our naked eye, we have no idea or acknowledgement that they exist. Particles which our perception, based upon on the sound evidence of our very own eyes, fails to acknowledge!’
Looking at her in amazement, it was Michael who truly began to see.
‘Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there, that’s what we’re saying here, isn’t it?’ he said, in astonishment.
‘Correct,’ she whispered, ‘but I want you to consider the other side of the coin, what lies there, do you think?’ With her eyes blazing, Tori waited for the answer.
Ken gave it to her, saying: ‘Well, the other side of the coin, would, I guess, say that just because we can see something, doesn’t mean that it’s actually there – that’s the other side, isn’t it?’
Tori nodded. ‘You’re almost right, Kenneth,’ she said. ‘In general, everyday things are actually there, but, sometimes they’re not…’ She waited, seemingly to gather her thoughts, maybe trying to work out another example of how to explain things to them. ‘Yes,’ she said, after a while. ‘Yes, let me see now, umm… imagine the veranda outside of the house. Well, now I want you to imagine Mike’s chair, the rocker, picture it sitting on the veranda just as it always has done for years and years.’
As their thoughts turned to the particular memory, Tori sent them a mental image. The old rocker swirled into their heads. Worn seat, scarred legs – they almost heard it creaking. Her soft voice interrupted the image.
‘If we were to lose that chair, perhaps someone was to remove it, or something…what would happen, would there be merely be an empty space where the chair should have been? Of course there would be!’ Tori giggled in that beautifully innocent, childlike way of hers.
She coughed and then, more seriously, said, ‘But, although the chair was definitely gone and only a space remained where it should have been, the funny thing is that no matter how long it remains missing from its spot, every time you look at the space of its previous existence, in your mind you will see it, inside you will see the chair. It is where you imagine it should be – where it’s always been!’ She laughed once more.
‘You would probably be able to hear it creaking,’ she whispered. ‘And no matter how many other things take its place, in your mind and in your heart, you will always see Mike’s chair; it’s going to be in the place where you always thought it would be, where you imagine it has always been.’
Tori breathed out in an expression of having done the best she could.
‘I could go on forever – I have gone on forever,’ she said, ‘but I need you to understand about the parallels, about the power of the mind, and about the awesome ability of our imaginations!’ She looked at them and smiled one last time, a gentle, loving smile. Tori knew that her time for talk was at an end.
With that sweet smile still on her lips, she finally said, ‘Lastly – and the most vital thing of all – I need you to realise the truth about the Darkness; it lies within us and around us, it is in everything that we are, everything! I need you to understand that this is the way in which the Darkness manages to stick to us. It is in all of us and some cannot resist the terrible things its presence brings – that is why certain people become the way they do, why they end up doing such heinous things, terrible things! It’s all down to those little pieces sticking to them and being allowed to flower – never let the Darkness within you flower, not ever!’
With an unconscious glance at each other, they turned back to Tori and nodded in confirmation of her more-than-sensible words. Letting the Darkness flower inside them was something they would all be avoiding, and avoiding like the plague.
***
A few days later and they were more or less back to their normal routine. The memory of their horrendous battle seemingly faded into the mists of a barely remembered yesterday. It was always like that in this place – the present surged to the front and dispelled the sorrows of history into a murky half-light, which sat in the darkened corner of one’s mind. Sitting and sulking at its secondary place, a place that would only be revisited when the need arose. The farm seemed to permeate a sense of the positive, a bright glow of fresh tomorrows and endless futures. Perhaps it was merely a true reflection of the inner human spirit, one that always looked to the future with a grin upon its face and a spring in its step.
Ken grinned at the thought. ‘Tomorrow is always going to be better than today, we all feel that way, don’t we – that’s how we progress, isn’t it?’ Keeping the positive thoughts going, he made his way out onto the veranda.
They had all remained busy over the past few days and, in addition to listening to Tori’s incredible explanations, had managed to do a fairly good job of returning the farm back to some form of normality. The last twenty-four hours had been somewhat of a restful period – the calm before the storm is what most of them recognised the time to be. After all, George had almost told them as much.
Ken had made sure that all of their weapons and equipment were back up to scratch, all cleaned and ready to go. With the much-welcomed addition of a re-supply from George, he now had everyone’s ammunition state back to what he considered to be an acceptable level. Although it has to be said that Ken was one of those guys who considered there never to be enough when it came to bullets and other items that dispensed death and destruction, especially when dealing with those weird, orange-eyed beings on whom his mind was now fully focused. Still, he was more than happy with what he had, and more importantly, with the experience that his little crew of Hunters had gained in their first two meetings with the Dark One’s hordes. He knew they were more than able to give a good account of themselves – of that he was certain.
He sat with the others for a while, enjoying a lazy mid-morning breakfast and watching young Mikey gingerly tracing a forefinger along the livid scar running across the right side of his neck. Ken looked at the pink line which the passing bullet had left upon the young man’s neck. It had been close, one or two millimetres to the right and that would have been the end to any plans being held for the young Hunter. Ken knew that even Melias wouldn’t have been able to help someone who was unlucky enough to have suffered a severed jugular vein. Mikey had been lucky – very, very lucky.
Ken stared at the wound and wondered where they would be if those few millimetres had managed to have their say, if the Demon had managed to achieve what he wanted. He shut his eyes and let those possibilities wander through his mind for a while. The truth is that they didn’t really bear thinking about and so he let himself focus on more positive things.
‘Yeah,’ he thought. ‘If the kid had been killed then things would be different, but it didn’t happen, he’s still here and we’re all together. At the moment, that’s all that matters!’ He let the more optimistic side of his nature take over again. The worst hadn’t happened and George had a plan – at least, Ken hoped he did.
No More Yesterdays
Finally it arrived, the time to go and confront the Demon was upon them, and there was to be no turning back. After a peaceful few days of hanging around the farm, and with not one glimpse of any more enemies – the strange, yellow-eyed, dark-skinned beings who had sought to destroy them with no other reason than having been told to do so – they received their orders from George.
‘The time has come, my friends, the time has come!’ he said, smiling at them from the shining prison of his screen. ‘I have transmitted all the information you require for the task at hand, unfortunately it is all the information that we have in our possession at the moment. Please have a good read of the notes and then make your plan accordingly. There is not really much more I can say – I think we all know what is involved here. Make your plans and be ready first thing tomorrow morning, for it is then that we shall engage in our last battle for this dimension!’
He paused and, with a more serious tone in his voice, said, ‘Young Mr Wildeman…’ Junior looked up at the screen in surprise. George smiled at him, saying: ‘Young man, you will find that there is a package for you, it contains something very valuable, something that you must take with you on your journey to the top. Do not, under any circumstances, leave without it!’
Without waiting for Mikey to acknowledge, George turned to Ken and said, ‘Kenneth, please give Michael the gift I presented to your wife all those many years ago – I believe it is currently sitting, unattended, in the safe by your bedside.’ It wasn’t a question.
Ken nodded and sat quietly as George carried on talking to Junior.
‘Take the thing that Kenneth will give you and place it alongside its twin,’ he said. ‘Take them both to the top, they will, we hope, be the only thing you need.’ The old man sat quietly for a while, gazing down at their faces, looking at each one of them in turn, almost as though he was embedding the images into his memory for one last time.
That’s the way it looked to Ken, but rather than dwelling on those dark thoughts, and with a grin on his face, he said, ‘Don’t worry about us, George – we’ll be just fine, we’re all more than capable of looking after ourselves!’ His positive attitude seemed to lift the veil of darkness from behind George’s eyes.
Their mentor leaned back and smiled softly. He nodded, saying: ‘Yes, I know, but I do worry about you all – I know it appears as though I don’t at times, and that sometimes I am deliberately being vague, but that is only because I do not always have the answers to all the problems we have fetched to your door… There is also the fact that we are dealing with several different parallels at the same time, and last but by no means least, I think that I may well be getting a bit too old for this!’
He smiled softly, and said, ‘Yes, a pipe and slippers, along with some pruning of my Geraniums, definitely seems to be getting more and more attractive of late…’ He winked down at them, but was staring straight at Ken when he spoke, once more sharing the hidden joke with his head honcho.
No-one else spoke in those last few, uncomfortable moments. The talking was over, time had run out and all that remained was the final, dreadful reality, and even that seemed to be a dream. So, without much further ado and only one last, wistful farewell, George took his leave. The Hunters all wondered if it was to be the last time they would ever see him.
They sat in silence for a short while after he had gone, quietly perusing their own thoughts and occasionally shooting little glances at each other. Eventually they were forced to become more active by the loud beeping noise which Ken’s computer emitted. He reached across and slid the machine towards himself.
‘Okay, let’s see what the score is, shall we?’ he said, and swivelled the screen in order that they might all see the news it brought to them.
Mikey and Junior rose to their feet and came to stand behind the others. Standing and sitting in their huddled group, the boys leaning on the shoulders of Ken and Red, the others crowded up around the screen, they waited whilst Ken pushed the buttons to release George’s final briefing.
In typical fashion, they were not to be given what they expected. If it was to be some amazingly long and graphic description of how they were to attend the greatest party of their lives, a lengthy and colourful tale of how and when they should go about things, which they expected to be shown – they were to be sadly disappointed.
The only things to appear on the screen were the following words: ‘Please be in the barn at 05:30hrs tomorrow morning. Everyone must stand inside the rectangle and wear the suits, they are in the barn. Take whatever you decide is necessary. Michael is to ensure that he carries the ships. When you arrive, go to the top of the mountain. He is there, you cannot miss him. Good luck. George.’
The screen blurred for a moment and then cleared. The writing had disappeared and was replaced by the image of a stone doorway. There were no other images present, just the doorway, and they all saw the black mist seeping through the cracks around its edges.
They stared at the picture for a while, remaining in silence for there was very little left to say. After a few moments, Ken leaned forward and gently lowered the lid on the machine. His purposeful action stirred them into life. As one they scraped back their chairs, rose to their feet and started talking amongst themselves. Ken sat and listened for a while.
Jane and Tori were discussing the dilemma of clothing – should they go dressed warmly or perhaps lightly, with a warm coat stuffed into their backpacks in case it became too cold to bear. He listened as he heard the other men talking about what weapons they should take. Junior saying that he was definitely going to take two pistols, Mikey said he might take three, just to be on the safe side.
He heard Red laugh and then say something about how: ‘You’ll need more than a damned pistol for that guy, yessir, a whole heap more!’
As Ken sat listening to their banter and the inevitable laughter, which such talk always seemed to evoke, the incredible nature of their situation once more struck him with its enormity. ‘I’m responsible for these people!’ he thought.
The realisation was a terrible one, but he also knew that there was to be no other way – this was it, the final showdown. In the back of his mind, and for the first time in a long while, Ken began to wish that he was dreaming. Snapping back into the situation at hand, and with a hearty, ‘Right, come on then, let’s get to it!’ he rose to his feet and headed for the barn with the rest of his crew in tow.
Over the next few hours they decided upon what equipment it should be that would accompany them on their trip to the top. They were all now fully aware of the strong possibility that their weapons would be rendered useless by the mist – however, Ken decided that they should still be armed. Even if their weapons did become useless, at least by having them they had the option, and in all honesty, it was his previous experience that drove those feelings. Going into the unknown without any weapons and limited options did not settle easily with him, not at all.
After discussing the problem for a while, they all decided upon taking a rifle and a pistol along with four full magazines for each weapon. ‘If they don’t work, then that’s fine,’ Ken said, ‘but at least we have the choice.’
The others agreed wholeheartedly with his sentiment.
They also sorted out a medical kit, which contained some of the essential lifesaving equipment: tourniquets, shell dressings, some splints and a few other items that Ken decided upon. He wasn’t really sure about what to take – first aid is just that, a temporary measure in order to keep the casualty alive until better help was able to be reached. Ken had no idea where exactly such help may reside, especially when they were due to be half way up some barren mountain in the middle of nowhere, a mountain that most likely lay in another time and place altogether. No, taking the medical pack was in itself nothing more than a gesture – it simply made them feel better, but was unlikely to be of any use in the long term. Ken also sincerely hoped that they wouldn’t need to use it.
He told them all to dress themselves with a least three layers of clothing, the first of which should be the Shrink Down suits. Just as George had said they would be, the suits were in the barn. They had found them folded neatly on top of a small metal box that had appeared in the middle of the concrete floor.
After passing a suit to each member of his team, Ken looked down at the box. It was constructed of a dull, lead-like metal, there was a gold coloured catch that had what appeared to be some kind of glass spike through it, like a nail would be inserted though the hasp of an old door in order to stop it swinging open. The box had an inscription engraved onto its lid.
‘Michael Jack Wildeman’.
That’s all it said, but they knew the true meaning of those words, guessing that what the message really meant was: ‘Hands off, this box is for Michael!’
Ken looked at the young man and then motioned towards the box with his head. ‘Mikey, this one’s for you, fella,’ he said.
Michael nodded and leaned down to retrieve the box. He stood there in some bemusement, almost forlornly, holding the box carefully in his hands, appearing not to know quite what to say.
Ken gave him a leg-up. ‘I guess that’s the thing your Dad used, the black ship – I have the other half in my room,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’ll give it to you in a minute. In the meantime I would suggest that it should be only you who touches it.’ He let his gaze swivel across to where Tori stood.
She nodded, saying: ‘Yes, it can only be Michael who touches the ships, because, apart from the obvious dangers, we are not quite sure how they will react when placed in close proximity to each other. It has been a very long time since they have been conjoined, and even then, the records are very sketchy, to say the least!’ She put her arm around Mikey’s shoulders and the display of her affection for him was plain to see.