The Darkness

by Matt Brennan

  “Oh, I’m sorry! Is the universe not co-operating with you today? Are all your dreams about this moment smashing themselves to pieces on the ground in front you? Well, boo hoo! Get a grip! The universe doesn’t give a damn about how you or anyone thinks it should unfold! And getting upset over things you can’t control is stupid! And you, my friend, are not stupid! So stop acting like a spoiled child and get over yourself!”

  My mom just had an amazing way of disarming me, and boiling it all down to an easy-to-digest truism. I don’t control my fate. No one does, so to get upset about something I don’t control, is just stupid.

  So, for the first time in months (years, if I’m really honest), instead of blowing up and making an ass out of myself to the entire universe I sit down on the nearby couch and sigh.

  I feel like I have the weight of the whole world resting on my shoulders, even if most of the world doesn’t have a clue what I’m doing. And as if that were not enough responsibility for me, now I am being told I have unwillingly and unknowingly adopted a stray—or rather, she adopted me.

  Suddenly, her insistence on driving me to Vancouver makes total sense. She wasn’t saving me time like she said was doing, she had no plans to ever go back. She was going to stick with me. She must have had a stash of supplies somewhere along the road. She was probably going to try to figure out a way to tell me on the road or maybe even had some elaborate story about how she couldn’t go back because it was too dangerous.

  Could my life get any weirder?

  I sigh again. “Well, if that’s the way you feel, can you at least stop calling me idiot? And Nancy?”

  She laughs through her tears, and just manages to say, “I would, if you would just stop acting like one.”

  Suddenly, we’re both laughing.

  And crying.

  But mostly laughing.

  Mostly.

  Through my own tears and laughter, I just manage to say, “So, I’m the only person you have?”

  She suddenly stops laughing. “Yes.”

  “So then you’re coming with me?”

  She looks terrified.

  I look her in the eyes and maybe for the first time I actually see her. She’s just a kid. She puts on this front like she’s this invincible superhero, but the truth is she’s practically a baby. She’s like this scared little girl who got lost in a department store or maybe in a forest and doesn’t have the slightest clue as to how to find her way back home.

  Just like me.

  “You think I want to be alone any more than you do? If it were up to me, I’d go back to my biosphere and we’d be neighbors forever. But I have all these people counting on me. I have to get to San Francisco. I knew that leaving you behind was going to be tough, but I didn’t think there was any way around it since I figured there was no way I could convince you to come with me.”

  She wipes a tear away. “But you didn’t even ask.”

  I sigh. “So you’re really coming with me then?”

  She looks at me through her tears. “I can’t go back to that place. Not alone. I just can’t.”

  “Then you’re coming with me to San Francisco? I just want to be clear.”

  She sighs. “Yes, I am going with you. But please just keep in mind from now on, that wherever you go, I’m going too. So just accept it right here and now. No more drama. No more threats of leaving me behind or splitting up. I can’t be alone anymore, so you are stuck with me. Just accept it.”

  This is getting a little weird now.

  She senses my recoil. “Look, I’m not saying we’re engaged or anything.”

  “It’s just that... Ellie...” I trail off.

  She rolls her eyes. “Look, I get it. You have a girlfriend. Good for you. I’m not offering my undying love or anything. But like it or not, you’re the only family I have right now. I know that’s crazy since we only met a week ago, but it’s true. Partly, because you remind me of my father. But also, honestly, mostly because of my fundamental lack of options. I cannot go back to doing the solitary person thing again. In fact, it scares the ever living crap out of me just thinking about it.”

  I look in those sad puppy dog eyes and my heart completely melts. She is so vulnerable right now, I want to hug her and rub her back and pat her head and tell her everything’s going to be all right. Which is crazy, because ten minutes ago I wanted to strangle the life from her.

  People are weird.

  But instead of doing either, I just say, “Yeah, it scares me too.”

  * * *

  We both agree that leaving right away is just not an option. For one, those guys are out there and they’re probably searching for us by now and leaving would mean increasing the odds that they’ll find us exponentially. Which is so awful to think about, I try to banish it from my thoughts.

  But evading capture isn’t the real reason we decide to stay: My brain is.

  You see, the concussion I got from Lyssa’s paddle needs time to heal. I remember reading once that a concussion can take several days to heal, and once you have one, if you don’t let it heal properly, you are ten times more likely to re-injure it. The worst part is that all I really want to do is sleep, which, of course, is the last thing I get to do for at least for six hours. You see, according to the first aid section in my Army Survival Manual, a person with a concussion shouldn’t be allowed to sleep for the first six hours after a head injury. According to the manual, people with head injuries might have a brain bleed and could slip into a coma in that time period. So it recommended watching them and staying awake until the window has passed.

  So, after much discussion, we decide that if I have to stay up for a day then I’ll need at least a week before I’m rested and fully recuperated for travel.

  Lyssa follows the instructions in the manual, softening the lights and laying me down with a wet towel on my forehead. She keeps talking to me and making me answer questions every few minutes in an effort to keep me awake, but it’s no good. Some time after an hour or so, I drift off.

  * * *

  I’m walking down a deserted street in Vancouver. There are dead and decaying bodies everywhere. And I don’t know how I know this next part, but I am absolutely sure it is exactly twenty-three days after The Darkness has reached the city limits.

  Everywhere I look, death is staring me in the face.

  It’s too horrible to behold, all the pain and misery these poor souls must have suffered through, before they were mercifully allowed to take their exit from this world. I didn’t see a single body that wasn’t positioned like my mother, obviously writhing in agony when they died. I saw several people trapped under cars and I wondered if they had died and were run over, or if they had thrown themselves in harm’s way, looking for an early release.

  I finally understood why Lyssa was so dead set against my coming here. It was horrific. It was like confronting the worst nightmare you’ve ever had, and then never being able to wake again.

  I turn a corner and walk under a tree, which startles a murder of crows who fly off in a cacophony of caws and beating wings. Once my heart restarts, an eerie unease, which only a murder of crows calling out their chilling cries could set in, creeps through my body, and I really begin to panic.

  I start to run. I have no idea where I’m going, but I know anywhere must be much better than right here. As I trip and stumble and kick rocks and cans and sticks, in my mad dash for the safety of some unknown sanctuary, I hear a noise I shouldn’t have.

  It’s the unmistakable sound of a can being kicked by a careless individual, who is not me.

  I stop running, hold my breath, and listen as closely as I can.

  Nothing.

  I must have imagi— A new sound erupts from the dead silence, cutting off the thought.

  The unmistakable sound of a metal trashcan being knocked over is heard somewhere off in the distance. When the sound fades, I begin to tell myself that it must have been an animal. A raccoon or a stray dog. Maybe even a rat.

 
Then I hear a twig snap. Then a car door slam shut. Suddenly, I’m hearing noise all around me, but I don’t see anything.

  I feel two hands grip my shoulder tightly and I spin around to see the chomping decayed jaws of a zombified Lyssa struggling to close her rotten fangs around my throat.

  * * *

  I snap awake and Lyssa is gently rocking my shoulders. I scream, struggling to get away from her.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, but you were asleep and I got scared! I should have been here to keep you up. I’m sorry!”

  I try to catch my breath, struggling to come back to reality. A reality where Lyssa is not trying to bite my throat out, but it’s difficult.

  It was so... so, real.

  “You were so weak, I just thought you needed some food. Here, I made you soup. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. It’s really good, my dad used to make it for me when I was sick. I knew I had some, but I couldn’t find it at first. I’m sorry, I messed up. I was supposed to be watching.”

  I am finally starting to lose the disjointed cloud that’s been engulfing me the past few seconds, and as a result I’m starting to see things a bit clearer. “Soup? You made me soup? That’s what my mother always made me. Only, we didn’t have canned soup.”

  “So, what? Warm water?”

  I chuckle. “No, she’d kill one of the chickens and cook it up. She never did teach me how to do it. I guess she’d thought I’d freak out over the butchering of the chicken.”

  She laughs. “Smart woman. Here, try some.”

  She is holding the steaming bowl and spoon feeds me. Not as good as my mom’s, but, like the corned beef hash, the new tastes exploding in my mouth are exhilarating! I sit up and take the bowl from her, and then I begin to shovel it into my mouth, just as fast as I can.

  She steps back quickly. “Jeez, don’t eat my hand!”

  I chuckle. “Sorry, it’s just so good!”

  She shakes her head and goes back to the desk. “Obviously.”

  “Aren’t you going to have any?”

  She shakes her head, and sighs, “Last can. Sorry. Maybe the last can on the planet for all I know. So enjoy it, champ. It’s not everyday you get to enjoy the last thing ever made.”

  I look down at my dinner in absolute horror, how could such a devilish prank like this ever be played on me? The thought that I will never know this taste again, this taste that I scoffed down so quickly, hits my damaged brain like an anvil. Guilt begins washing over me. I robbed the world of this delicacy!

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m not, I have truck-load of it. I only eat it when I’m sick. I have some corned beef hash simmering. You know, you do make it hard not to insult you.”

  I really do.

  After the soup, I fight the good fight to stay awake, but the combination of exhaustion and head injury is winning the war. Lyssa stops trying to keep me up, after putting up a valiant effort, partly because my symptoms aren’t that bad, but mostly because there is no possible way to stop me. I am just too tired to be awake any longer.

  Just before I slip away, I notice how similar this feeling is to how I felt when I died on my bedroom floor.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Almost as soon as I had closed my eyes, the night I died, I was back in the biosphere.

  Was I still alive? I was so cold I remember I hadn’t been sure.

  That was the really strange part: where was the fever? I remember I curled into a ball shoved my hands into my armpits to try to warm them, but it was no good because I was far too cold. My head felt a bit clearer as well, though the fog had been replaced by a dull aching throb in the center of my skull, so it wasn’t exactly a win.

  I rolled over on my side and pain shot through just about every muscle in my body. I had felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I remember the wall clock was showing 4:18 am, which didn’t seem right to me. It just hadn’t seemed possible my fever could have broken in a couple of hours.

  The fever never breaks. Like, at all.

  I couldn’t have had The Darkness. It must have been a really bad cold or something.

  I started to get up to crawl into bed when I noticed how full my bladder was. At first, I contemplated just going in my pants, but the thought of cleaning up afterwards just wasn’t even remotely appealing. So the only option left was to try for the bathroom. I reached up and grabbed the arm of my desk chair and used it to pull myself up to my knees. Then I somehow managed to get myself to sit down in its faux-leather comfort. Rather than get up from there, I used the castors to wheel myself to the bathroom. I didn’t have the strength to stand up to pee, so I squeezed past the sink and sat it out on the porcelain throne and got it done with.

  When I finished, I collapsed back into my chair and rolled myself over to the bed and dove in. I was out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  I remember feeling like I had just closed my eyes when I heard a voice speaking in the distance. “Dorian? Dorian Whitney? Mr. Whitney? Turn up the volume would you Gerry? Thank you. MR. WHITNEY, PLEASE WAKE UP!”

  The incredibly loud voice stirred me from my deep slumber. The loud squelching sound the feedback made, was so intense I could actually feel it in my mitochondria.

  “What the hell? Who is that?”

  The loud voice screamed, “OH THANK GOD! DORIAN, MY NAME IS DR. FRANCIS SANDERSON AND I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW NICE IT IS TO TALK TO YOU!”

  “I don’t care who you are, my head’s killing me, could you please be quiet!”

  “GERRY?” the squelching sound mercifully disappeared, and he said, “There is that better Dorian? Can I call you Dorian?”

  “No.”

  “Very well, Mr. Whitney, I have been waiting a very long time to speak with you! You wouldn’t believe how long!”

  “What are you talking about,” I asked and put my pillow over my head to try and drown out the noise.

  “Well, Mr. Whitney, for all intents and purposes, you were dead two days ago.”

  I sat bolt upright after he said that. I was blown away that there was a man on all my screens. “Hey, how’d you jack into all my screens?”

  The man was in his fifties, which also blew me away, because I didn’t think anyone that old was even alive anymore. He looked nice enough, but then again there really isn’t very much you can tell about a person from a TV screen. He was balding and was wearing a tie. I’d forgotten all about ties. Seeing one made me feel a bit nostalgic.

  “Well, I wish I could answer that Mr. Whitney, but that’s not really my area of expertise.”

  That wasn’t good. I could tell he knew very well how they were doing it, but he wasn’t talking. I didn’t like that at all.

  “Look, Dr. whatever—”

  “Dr. Sanderson,” he offered politely.

  “Sanderson, the door of information swings both ways or my door closes, comprende?”

  “I don’t know what you mean Mr. Whitney? I’m being perfectly—”

  I moved my finger to the on-off switch on the power strip next to my desk which powered my server. “Doc, one more lie and I disconnect.”

  “Wait! Mr. Whitney, please. You have to give me a minute of your time!” He looked desperate.

  “Quite frankly Doc, I don’t have to do anything. I just had a wicked flu and I need some rest. So if you’ll excuse me—Hey did I hear you say I died two days ago?”

  He suddenly looked very pleased with himself. “Yes. Yes I did.”

  “Well, then how long was I out?”

  “Well, according to our records, you slipped into a coma two days ago. You had zero brain function at that time, other than the typical autonomic functions expected. Then this morning, for no reason we can tell, you simply just woke up. It’s really quite remarkable! And by the way, you are most definitely mistaken. According to your bio-readouts you had the melding and not the flu. Of that there is no question.”

  Even though my head was still throbbing, I got out of bed and sat in my
chair and rolled closer to my screens. “How can that be Doc?”

  “Well, that very question has us all very excited over here!”

  “Who’s us, Doc?”

  Doctor Sanderson looked both ways and cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not really at liberty to tell you Mr. Whitney. That information must remain classified. At least for the moment. This line is most definitely not the most secure we could have found.”

  I didn’t like the secrets. “Doc, I’m getting that desire to pull the plug again.”

  “Mr. Whitney, I’m being told, that it won’t do you any good,” Dr. Sanderson said. He picked up a piece of paper and recited it to me, “While you were unconscious, we have taken control of your CPU. You are completely locked out and would need a supercomputer to break the encryption code.” Doctor Sanderson put the paper down. “I’m sorry about that by the way.”

  “Doc, I have back ups.”

  He raised a hand to his left ear. “Yes, I’m also being told that any computer you try to connect to the network will automatically be infected by the virus they’ve planted and will be re-imaged immediately. Again I’m sorry about all this. It’s not my area and I’m not sure what this all means entirely, but it doesn’t sound very friendly.”

  “You don’t get it Doc, I have a secondary server. I can isolate this server and disconnect it from my system. My alternate server is firewalled like you read about. There is no way you could get through.”

  Doctor Sanderson sighed. “I’m sorry Dorian, but I’m being told the moment you try to connect to a satellite to access the game network, your system would be compromised. I know this sounds incredibly hostile.”

  I pushed myself away from my desk and began to examine my server. “Ya think?”

  “I begged them to let me just try to speak with you first, but they can be very insistent when they want to be.”

  “Who exactly are they again?”

  Doctor Sanderson looked both ways again. “As I said, I’m not at liberty to share that information at this time. Suffice it to say, they control things. But what we need from you goes beyond who they are or who I am.”