Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction

by Maria Grazia Cavicchioli

While there was still hope, there was life.

  Wasn’t there?

  Harry considered trying the radio again, but what was the point? What would have changed in the past hour or so? He looked at the clock there on the wall — not flush, because how could you fit something flat against a rounded wall? He would have had the same trouble with paintings or photos, if he’d even bothered with them. The hands told him how much time had passed, but he rarely kept track of the days or months anymore. They’d all blurred into one. He only marked them out now by the tasks he had to accomplish. The routines he set himself, keeping himself busy in case—

  There was that rattle again. That cog really needed replacing. How was he expected to keep everything going smoothly without any parts? It was ridiculous! How was he supposed to keep people safe? Harry shook his head at the thought of it. Lax, very lax of them.

  If he wasn’t going to sleep, he should at least eat, keep his strength up. Something told Harry that this was going to be a busy period, that he’d be needed more now than ever. He fixed himself a sandwich from the stocks in the fridge, which, unlike the fuel, was running quite low. The cheese and meat was already going off, a pot of spread the only thing he dared risk.

  "You don’t look after yourself well enough," he heard himself say, and again pushed thoughts of Clare from his mind; that was what she used to say when he got back home from his previous job and hadn’t eaten all day.

  “Harry, what are we going to do with you? You need to eat, sweetheart. If you don’t then—”

  “Then what?” he heard himself snap out loud. The sound of his own voice surprised Harry. But he knew the answer to his question: Clare would have said the same thing. Then you’ll let down the people that rely on you? People could wind up dead just like...

  Say it...go on, say it!

  “Just like you and the kids!”

  Harry suddenly didn’t feel all that hungry.

  The rattling was definitely growing louder, the cog wearing even more. What should he do? Attempt to fix it? No, he knew what would happen in the meantime; someone was bound to come along who needed the light to guide them to safety and it wouldn’t be working. Actually, that wasn’t true... it wouldn’t be rotating, but it would still be on — needed to be on — just fixed in one position which he could aim. But what if he wasn’t able to do anything with the cog once it had been taken out? Harry had neither the skills nor the facilities to make another one.

  As it turned out, that little cog was the least of his concerns. Harry would have noticed it, had he not been listening to the rattle, had his mind not been on other things (just as it had when he should have been making sure his family was all right). The thrum of the generator itself was a little off. The consequence of an air bubble in the tank itself; Harry had been too quick filling up the last time and was about to pay the price.

  The generator made a strange noise, halfway between a grunt and a whine, then it began to splutter. Harry looked up to begin with, his mind still on that damned cog. Then he realized it wasn’t the source of the problem at all. As he made his way across the kitchen the internal lights began to flicker.

  “No... no...” Harry said, dashing to the steps and swinging round the corner, nearly falling down as he rounded them too quickly. He took them two at a time, relying on the curve of that wall to not only guide him but carry him to the bottom of the lighthouse to ground level where the generator was.

  The machine was not doing well. If it was spluttering as he took his first steps, then that had developed into a full blown cough by the time Harry arrived. Racking, deep-throated coughs that told him the patient was in serious trouble. Just like the light itself, Harry still couldn’t help thinking of this machinery as a living thing, and so he talked to it as he flitted about, attempting to fix whatever was wrong. “Come on, please don’t die on me. You can’t... think about the light. Think about the people might... who will die...” People like Clare, like Toby and Sally Anne.

  Don’t think about them, don’t think about what happened when you came home and found—

  Okay, then, people like him.

  Harry shook his head, not in dismay this time, but in sheer desperation: a silent plea to the generator not to switch off. But the vapor lock was doing its worst. Even as Harry figured out what it might be and was unscrewing the lid of the fuel tank, the machine gave a final whimper — in complete contrast to the racking coughs from before — and shuddered; then it was still. No vibrations, no thrum that could be heard throughout the building. The tuning fork had no notes to carry. The music had stopped playing, the band now departing.

  Harry glanced up. The lights lining the staircase were already fading, the bulbs cooling as he watched. It would be the same story throughout the tower. He should begin by lighting the backups, the oil lamps. They’d buy him some time to work out what he should do next. By now the small emergency battery up in the service room would be firing up; that would keep the main lamp going for a short while. But he had to think of a more permanent solution, and quickly. As the shadows lengthened in the porch, the silence that had replaced the thrum and then the coughing, was itself replaced by another noise.

  A scratching sound.

  Harry backed off, slowly at first, then more quickly. Light the lamps, light the lamps, light the lamps... he kept repeating to himself, over and over, ignoring the new sounds and racing back up the stairs again. Unfortunately, the same acoustics that told him the generator was functioning — back when it actually had been — now worked against him, the scratching following him up that tower as he scrabbled with his lighter and attempted to get the first of the oil lamps going. He fumbled with the lighter, though, flicking it and burning his fingers.

  The scratching grew louder. Then, just as he was about to put flame to wick, the splintering of the door caused him to jump and the lighter went out. They were already through, and already on the stairs.

  Harry’s mind flashed back to finding his family, returning home after that drive through the city, witnessing the pandemonium on the streets — chaos he himself would have been a part of were it not for the headlights of his car ramming through the black night.

  Though he had little time for this, he couldn’t help reliving that evening again. Reliving the weeks preceding it, the reports of night-time deaths, eyewitnesses describing shapes in the darkness. Like everyone else, he’d dismissed it as nonsense, in spite of Clare’s fears. “Look at the map, Harry,” she said, pointing to the TV news one night. “The incidents are getting closer.”

  “It’ll all blow over,” he told her. “Nothing to worry about. Besides, we never turn our lights off.” Harry was referring to young Sally Anne’s fear of the dark, which had started even before all this (they always had to leave the landing light on when they went to bed). Fears that turned out to be oh-so justified. “There are streetlamps outside, plus the security light outside the house. Failing that, there are always candles if you’re really scared, darlin’.” Scared? Stupid idiot... stupid fucking idiot. He’d even made light (God, how wrong that word choice was) of the situation. If he could go back right then, turn back the clock he took so little notice of, then he’d bundle them all into his Ford and make for somewhere... somewhere safe. (Oh really, like where exactly?)

  How was he to know the chain of events that would follow? What happened near the power station, the ripping down of pylons which carried electricity to all the homes in the region — or at least something inside the dark that had caused the damage. The lights in their home, the streetlamps — all useless. And the security lamp that had been wired up to a separate battery, well, that had failed as well... because of him. Because he hadn’t fucking well checked that battery, had he? It had run down because he was too busy at the advertising agency (no checking routines, back then, you see).

  Harry thought he was imagining some of it, folks getting sucked into the blackness off the street — being dragged, to be more precise. He’d simpl
y ploughed on with his car, ploughed up his driveway — his heart sinking when he saw it was in almost total darkness. Then he spotted the flickering candles.

  “Good girl, Clare,” he whispered to himself, parking up and leaving the engine running, the headlights shining on the front of their home.

  Grabbing his torch, he ran inside and stopped dead. What he saw was Clare and the kids, huddling round a dying flame, the darkness at their backs. They were already covered in scratches, some of them deep. Poor Toby’s face was a bloodied mess already — but they were at least alive. Clare held out a hand when she saw him, whimpering, “H-Harry... help... help us...”

  But the draft from that movement blew out the candle, and the last thing he saw was their terrified faces as the black enveloped them, the flashing of obsidian claws next. Then the sounds; flesh and bone shredding, the screams of his family as they were torn apart. He couldn’t see any of it, and wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse (his imagination supplied much worse images), but those sounds...

  Harry had snapped out of his stupor momentarily, flashing the torch at the spot where they’d been seconds before, and heard other noises; those... things retreating, backing off from the beam. But there was no sign of Clare, Sally Anne or Toby.

  Tears half blinding him, Harry stumbled backwards, leaving the house and backing up until he hit the bonnet of his car. There he slid down, crumpling up on the driveway. He’d been found there when daylight returned; Harry had been protected by the headlamps though he wouldn’t have cared if the creatures had killed him, too. He was a broken man.

  Taken to one of the survivor camps, he’d found out that such attacks were building in intensity all over the world. No one was dismissing the threat now, not after so many deaths… least of all Harry. It was while he was there that he learned about the defenses being swiftly put into place. About the towers that would be built to protect: lighthouses, just like they had overlooking cliffs and the sea, except these would safeguard the people on the land instead. Because the attacks were starting to happen in the daytime now as well, blackouts — only for minutes at a time to begin with, but gradually getting longer — were blotting out the sun, everywhere; just as they had already the moon and the stars.

  Harry volunteered then, of course, reasoning that if he couldn’t bring his family back he might at least save someone else’s. Atone for what he’d done. And he hadn’t been alone; thousands, millions of lighthouses had been constructed, and each given their own keeper. ‘The Keepers of the Light,’ they were dubbed by the press, back when such a thing still existed. Harry was proud to serve, and he had stopped many an attack on innocents in his time by shining his powerful beam out into the darkness. Then, one day, there was simply no natural light at all. That’s when Harry and his kind had been needed most of all, had been supplied with everything they needed to ward off the creatures that couldn’t be fought by conventional means (and they’d tried... by Christ had they tried).

  Harry had done his duty, set his own routines to keep everything working properly. Until now. Until there had been no-one left to answer his radio calls, nobody left to deliver supplies. No other way of contacting the outside world by mobile or landlines.

  Harry fumbled with the lighter again, backing up as the shadows ascended the stairs. It was too late to light this lamp, he knew that, even as the claws emerged from the black just meters away, reaching out to grab him. Harry shoved his hand in his pocket and drew the torch he always carried about his person, firing the small beam into the dark like a gunslinger. There was that noise again, the same as it had been the night his family were murdered; the sound of those bastards inside the dark retreating.

  “Not so brave now, are you?” he shouted, as he began backing up the stairs again. They paused, then followed… at a distance. Harry realized that they wouldn’t let him light any of the oil lamps. That if he took his eyes off the blackness for even a second, enough to let his guard slip with the torch, they’d be on him. So he continued to retreat.

  It was as he was passing by the living room that he heard the static on the radio crackle. Then the voice. Faint at first, it grew stronger. It was a woman’s voice. “Hello...Hello...is there anyone there?”

  Yes! Harry wanted to shout, but he wasn’t anywhere near the microphone to press the button. Yes, I’m here...

  “Is there anyone left? I — I can’t see any... There’s no more light, apart from our... Oh God...Oh God, please help us... It’s going... it’s going out—

  H-Harry... help... help us...

  Harry made a move towards the radio, but it was already too late. The screams had started, the person obviously being savaged at the other end. Then the signal went dead.

  “No!” Harry cried.

  The darkness pushed forwards and with it the creatures. Harry had no choice but to begin back up the steps again, retracing the journey he’d made not that long ago, past the bedroom level and on up towards the service room.

  The emergency battery was struggling to maintain the lamp, he could see that. It was nowhere near as powerful as the generator, and... and when was the last time he’d tested it? Harry thought for a moment. In amongst all his checks had he done one on the battery lately? Yes... of course, only the other week. Or was it the other month? He’d been frightened of running it down. There was precious little energy in it, anyway.

  The lens had stopped turning, though, and was just pointing out over the land in one direction. It was also flickering, just like the electric lights had been throughout the tower when the generator was failing. He didn’t have much time, he knew that.

  Harry glanced down the stairs at the approaching tide black. Then sideways at the fuel he had left. He grinned madly.

  By the time the lamp was failing properly, Harry had poured the fuel all over the service room, and out onto the balcony as well, throwing it up onto the lamp itself where he could reach it. All the while he had his torch with him, just in case, but the lamp itself was still keeping the creatures at bay.

  They made their scratching noises as they waited for it to die out, for Harry to be in complete darkness, but he had other ideas. He looked out as the lamp breathed its last, and realized that the voice on the radio was right — at least as far as he could see. There were no more lighthouses, no more lights at all out there. Just blackness. That’s why he couldn’t contact anyone, that’s why there were no more deliveries of replacements. The darkness and the things inside had finally won.

  “No,” he said, as he watched the lamp’s light fade to nothing. “Not yet, you don’t.” Harry readied himself, gripping the lighter that he’d need two hands to flick. He wouldn’t fail this time; he couldn’t.

  He dropped the torch, hearing it shatter rather than seeing it. Feeling the black wash over him, feeling the claws raking him. There was a spark and even as Harry died, he laughed.

  Because he was one of the last keepers of the light... no, he was the last keeper of the light.

  And even as he blacked out himself, he was still able to complete his job

  Paul Kane’s genre journalism has appeared in magazines like Fangoria, SFX and Rue Morgue, and he is the author of The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy. His short stories have been collected in Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones and Peripheral Visions, and his novellas include Signs of Life (shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards 2006), The Lazarus Condition (introduced by Mick Garris, creator of Masters of Horror) and RED (illustrated by Dave ‘MirrorMask’ McKean). His mass market novels Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland detail the exploits of a post-apocalyptic Robin Hood, and he is the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts — stories inspired by the Clive Barker novella that spawned Hellraiser. His story “Dead Time” was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC network show Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (creator of 30 Days of Night) as “New Year’s Day,” and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). Paul also scripted The Opportunity, base
d on his own short, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. His website, which has featured guest writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and James Herbert, can be found at www.shadow-writer.co.uk. Don’t miss Paul’s book Shadow Writer available at fine bookstores.

  The Man in the Rain

  by Christopher Fowler

  Karen sent a text to her best friend, written in upper case that didn’t sound like her at all. She never “shouted,” and usually wrote in tight abbreviations.

  I MUST STAY WITH YOU FOR A FEW DAYS FROM TOMORROW. K.

  No time mentioned, no reason why. And must?

  She knew Amanda had no choice but to wait in all next day, and did so because Karen had been through difficult times lately. The death of her father after a lingering illness had come as no surprise, but she had been out of town on the night he lost his final battle with brain cancer. Karen had never suggested feeling guilty for not being there, but she didn’t have to; her mother had made that sentiment abundantly plain.

  Karen had figured that it wasn’t until she failed to show up for her birthday party that Amanda felt something was amiss. It wasn’t like her to cancel without warning and a good reason. She’d had a long time to prepare for her father’s death — but perhaps its effect had been delayed, and she’d simply been feeling depressed.

  When Karen pressed the buzzer, she heard Amanda run to open the door just to find herself looking at a haggard, yellowish creature that she could hardly recognise as her old schoolfriend. For a moment, something crossed her face, perhaps a thought that Karen might be on drugs, but she dismissed the idea and her expression cleared.

  Karen had never touched anything stronger than tea with soya milk but as she trudged in and dropped her knapsack, she was showing shoulder blades outlined under a thin sweater.

  “Christ, Karen, what’s happened to you?” Amanda hadn’t meant to say it, but the words slipped out and her face reddened.