Hello Darkness

by Sam Best

  Deep laughter rolled over the woods and Tommy froze in place.

  It came from nowhere near him yet sounded like it was just around the corner. It vibrated his bones and rattled his vision. The low-pitch rumble built to a tenor wail, piercing the air and shaking dead leaves from the branches of trees all around him.

  Tommy cried out and covered his ears, doubling forward as the noise burrowed into his skull. An image of the monster flashed through his mind along with a hundred other twisted beasts he had never seen, all clamoring for his throat, razored teeth a chomping blur.

  The laughter stopped. The woods fell silent.

  Tommy wiped tears from his eyes and ran on.

  He veered right at the base of a small decline to skirt a tall mound of broken boulders half-buried in dead moss and dry leaves. The path ahead ran for a few feet in bright moonlight, uncovered by the canopy above, then plunged into complete shadow beyond a cave of branches.

  The main hiking trail ran from one end of the valley to the other. One of Tommy’s old hiking maps showed a broad yellow stripe right through the heart of the woods, with a landmark called “The Tunnel” highlighted in red.

  The black hole before him was ringed with sharp branches, like teeth, that seemed to close in on him as Tommy ran into the dark entrance.

  He barely had time to notice the noise of something else running toward him before whatever it was slammed into him and sent him rolling back out into the moonlight. His head knocked against the ground as he tumbled to a stop on his back. Tommy groaned and sat up, then pushed himself to his feet and stared into the cavernous hole in the path before him.

  A man emerged from the shadows, brushing off the front of his uniform shirt. His gun holster was empty and small scratches covered his face.

  “Hello, Tommy,” he said.

  “D-D-Deputy Foster…”

  Tommy backed away slowly. Every time he moved, Walt took a step toward him.

  “D-D-Deputy!” mocked Foster with a sharp laugh. “D-D-D!”

  Tommy remembered Kyle Laubin on the playground at his school.

  Foster sighed. “We’re all dead. You know that, right?” He put his hands on his hips and frowned. Dark circles painted the skin below his tired eyes. “That thing tried to kill me. After what I did, can you believe it? Look.”

  He turned and showed Tommy his back. A huge black laceration ran from his right shoulder blade down to his hip. It wasn’t bleeding, but black sludge oozed gently from his skin. Tommy gagged from the stench.

  “You can’t trust anyone these days,” said Foster. “Can I be honest with you? I don’t really expect to get out of these woods alive.” He looked up at the sky, then back down at Tommy. “Unless…”

  Foster lunged forward but Tommy jumped to the side, avoiding his grasp. The deputy was too fast; he followed Tommy’s movement and punched him in the stomach.

  Tommy collapsed to the ground, bent over double. Trying to take a breath was like forcing air through a plastic bag.

  Foster reached down and pulled Tommy to his feet. “If we’re dead anyway,” he said, brushing the dirt from Tommy’s back, “we may as well try.” He shoved Tommy into the shadowy entrance and followed after him.

  “You stink,” said Tommy weakly. It was the only thing he could think to say to try and hurt the man. The black sludge reeked and made Tommy’s eyes water.

  Foster laughed. “You have no idea, kid. None. I feel terrible. I want you to know that. I don’t feel like I used to, that’s for damn sure.”

  Tommy knew that if the monster wanted Foster dead it would have already killed him.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “It occurs to me that maybe one wasn’t enough,” said Foster. “The big guy asked me for Howard’s kid, but who knows if it won’t be happier with another one? I don’t like running anyway. Best to just get it over with.”

  “But you were running.”

  “Was I? Huh. Maybe. Can’t really remember.”

  The thick brush on both sides of the path cleared and the canopy overhead opened up once more, allowing small slivers of moonlight to cross the ground at Tommy’s feet. The rising ribbon of black smoke was too close.

  “Please don’t, Mr. Foster.”

  “Oh, come on, kid. What were you going to do, anyway? You were running right for the damn thing. Now it’s just gonna look like I’m the one that brought you in. Win-win.”

  Foster shoved Tommy’s back and he fell from the shadows of the forest onto the open ground of a large clearing. The air was hot and humid; the stench was worse than the black gunk on Foster’s back.

  A large pit in the center of the clearing spewed black smoke up into the sky. The edges of the crater glowed red-orange beneath crusted soil. On one side of the open space, Deputy Raines hung suspended in the air by ropes of black gunk between two trees, her arms and legs spread wide as if she were a lab specimen that was about to be dissected. Sludge coated her torso. Next to her, piled against the bottom of a tree—around it and beyond—was a mountain of dead bodies. Tommy could only look at the mess for a second, just long enough to notice that Annabelle was not at the top of the remains. He saw no sign of her in the clearing.

  “Raines?” said Foster loudly. “Well, I’ll be! Reunited at last.” He looked around the clearing warily and walked closer to Karen, dragging Tommy along by his pajama shirt. Karen’s head drooped forward over her chest and she didn’t raise it to acknowledge Foster.

  He turned away abruptly, his face contorted in pain. He dropped to his knees and pawed at the wound on his back, keeping one hand gripped firmly on Tommy’s shirt.

  “Damn thing,” he said between ragged breaths.

  He stuck a finger into the gunk and held it up in front of his face, squinting at the sludge with drunken concentration.

  “How ‘bout that, kid?” he said.

  On the other side of the pit, at the edge of the clearing, something big emerged from the forest. Tommy’s inside went hollow as the monster strode to the edge of the pit and stared at him through the rising black smoke.

  It was like nothing Tommy had ever seen. Long, spindly arms led to an asymmetrical torso that looked like a clump of broken bones underneath paper-thin flesh. The bones grinded and cracked against each other as the thing walked around the pit and stopped next to Tommy and Foster. Thin, multi-jointed legs grew from the bottom of its abdomen at obscene angles. Its hands and feet conformed to no single shape; they became wide stumps when they made contact with the ground and instantly changed into clawed talons when the beast raised its limbs from the earth.

  Foster stood up shakily, blinking at the towering beast above him.

  Wrinkles of flesh sank down over the monster’s face, hiding its dark eyes. One of the wrinkles parted, then lowered, then kept dropping to reveal a multitude of flagellating, needle-sharp teeth. The teeth slowly angled outward like the petals of a blossoming flower, then gently folded back into the beast’s mouth.

  Tommy stayed on his back and slowly pushed himself across the ground, away from the monster.

  Movement on the far side of the clearing caught his eye. A thin black man ran out of the woods, then was quickly pulled back into the shadows by another person.

  Pastor Moses and Mr. Howard.

  Tommy stopped crawling and looked at Foster. The deputy stood before the monster, paralyzed.

  “I-I-I…” said Walt dumbly. “I thought maybe you wanted another one.”

  The monster’s face turned toward Tommy, then twisted back to Foster.

  Its jaw opened wider and Foster’s voice sprang from the depths of its throat, laced with a hundred screams. “I-I-I,” it said. It smiled at Foster, then bent down and bit off the top half of his body with a single, quick movement.

  Foster’s legs and hips stood upright for another second, then toppled over and splatted to the ground.

  The monster raised its head to the sky and howled.

  The noise made Tommy want to curl up in a ball and
cry, but instead he covered his ears and ran for the edge of the clearing beneath Deputy Raines.

  The monster ignored him. It stomped around the remains of Foster’s body. It picked up one leg in each clawed hand and ripped them apart as if they were a chicken’s wishbone, then slapped them against the ground as it laughed and howled with a thousand voices to the distant corners of the valley.

  Tommy couldn’t stop his hands from shaking as he jumped up and grabbed on to Karen’s leg. He yanked down hard and the brittle black bindings on her arms and legs shattered like broken glass.

  She fell on top of him and groaned.

  “Deputy Raines!” Tommy whispered. His voice was gone. “Karen!”

  The clearing was silent.

  Tommy pushed Karen’s hair out of his face and looked toward the pit. The monster stood there, unmoving, gripping one of Foster’s legs and staring directly at Tommy with its eyeless, wrinkled face.

  Its jaw dropped silently and its open mouth widened to the size of a small car. It reared up onto its hind legs and its teeth clacked against each other loudly. Black sludge poured over its bottom jaw and slapped to the ground at its feet. The monster was as tall as the trees on the far side of the clearing.

  Tommy crawled out from beneath Karen and shook her violently. “We need to go!” he whispered.

  She groaned but did not wake.

  The thing crossed half the clearing in one giant step.

  The hollowness inside Tommy deepened, but still he found his voice, stood up, and screamed at the demon—in that moment he knew it could be nothing else—screamed with all of the power in his small body.

  The demon stopped and looked down at him. Its head turned to one side, then the other.

  Tommy’s eyes drifted to the dark space where he knew Pastor Moses was waiting. His fear melted away and he smiled into the shadows of the trees on the far side of the clearing. He smiled to let Ben and Pastor Moses know that it was okay.

  Tommy turned around and ran into the woods.

  Behind him, the monster screamed.

  Tommy almost turned around when he heard Moses’s deep voice rise above the demon’s wail, but instead ran faster, harder, into the night.

  For a time he thought the thing hadn’t followed him; that his plan had failed and Karen and Moses and Mr. Howard were going to die along with everyone else.

  In the shadows off to his right, a tree exploded halfway up its trunk and sent a cloud of splinters spinning out in all directions.

  It was chasing him.

  Tommy concentrated on the woods. There was no visible trail ahead of him; he could only rely on split-second reactions to avoid thick tree trunks and fallen branches.

  The woods crashed down behind him as the demon approached. Tommy veered away from the clearing and kept running, and did his best to ignore the hot breath of the demon as it got closer and closer to the back of his neck.

  26

  Ben reached out and pulled Moses back into the woods.

  The preacher burst from the forest after he heard Foster’s voice, but Ben held him back and pinned him against the trunk of a tree.

  “There’s no point,” said Ben. “Not yet.”

  Moses shrugged him off and stood at the edge of the clearing reluctantly, squeezing the handle of the sledgehammer.

  Next to the pit, Foster stood up to face the demon.

  “There is another weapon in your tool shed,” said Moses suddenly.

  “What?” said Ben. “What are you talking about? Why the hell are you just telling me now?”

  In the clearing, the demon bent down and bit Foster in half.

  “God,” said Moses. He swallowed thickly.

  Ben crouched down instinctively and pulled the preacher down next to him as they watched the demon toy with Foster’s remains.

  “Would you have wanted to get the other weapon,” said Moses, “even knowing that the demon still had your daughter?”

  “No,” said Ben.

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I hid the weapons because I knew someone or something would come for me, but I didn’t know where or when. Foster would have taken everything away.”

  Ben looked into the clearing. “Tommy’s still out there.”

  The boy stood and screamed at the demon. His small body shook and his face turned crimson. The demon stopped and looked down at the boy.

  “Listen,” said Moses. “Don’t waste any time. Find your daughter. Get her to safety.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Moses smiled. “Sometimes I wonder why the people in this world are worth saving in the first place,” he said. “Then I remember that I am a fool. Good luck, Benjamin.”

  Across the clearing, Tommy darted into the woods.

  “Wait!” said Ben, but Moses was too quick.

  He ran out from the shadows and stood holding the sledgehammer, its steel head shining in the moonlight. He whistled and the demon jerked its head around. It screamed in anger when it saw the weapon, then stomped around on all four of its limbs and roared at Moses. Black spittle flew out of its gaping maw.

  The pastor filled his lungs and yelled out a booming challenge.

  “I am a follower of God and a chosen conduit for His Holy Word! Come and get me.”

  He ran away from Ben and disappeared into the woods.

  The demon twisted its head in both directions, then raised its mouth to the sky and howled. With a hundred simultaneous cracks and rips, its body erupted down the middle and became two separate entities. The skin of the larger demon formed around the two smaller bodies, sealing over their jagged skeletons as they vomited clear liquid onto the ground.

  Bloody patches of white fur dotted their wet, translucent flesh. Two black eyes protruded above stubby, wrinkled snouts. Their heads were bald and earless.

  They snarled and tore off into the woods in opposite directions.

  Ben stumbled out into the clearing and ran over to Karen.

  “Raines!” he said as he knelt beside her. He set his shotgun on the ground next to her body and brushed bloodied, matted hair from her face.

  She groaned and her eyelids fluttered briefly, then closed. Ben looked around in a panic, searching for his daughter.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He stood up quickly and tripped over a root. He fell on his stomach and his hands mushed into wet soil. Ben pushed himself up and realized he had tripped over a severed leg and that the wet soil was the remains of Hank Buckley, the hardware store owner.

  Ben rolled to the side and rubbed his bloody hands on the ground, then against his jeans. He shook his hands and a glob of red matter splatted against his neck. He shuddered and bent forward as he dry-heaved. After Ben caught his breath, he stood up and walked around the glowing pit.

  “Annabelle!” he shouted. “Anna!”

  He ran around the edge of the clearing, searching the base of every tree. His eyes darted wildly over the ground surrounding the pit. He walked back to the crater and peered over the edge, half-expecting to see the broken body of his little girl strewn across the bottom.

  She was not there.

  Instead, a furnace of lava roiled in the heart of the pit, spitting up black sludge that bubbled up the sides of the crater. His skin sizzled audibly and Ben stepped back from the ledge.

  “Anna,” he said weakly.

  “Daddy?”

  Her small voice came from somewhere above. He spun in place, searching the treeline.

  A few trees down from where Karen had been hanging, he saw a small leg dangling near the bottom of the canopy.

  Ben ran to the base of the tree and looked up. Annabelle sat wedged in the crook of a thick branch halfway up the tree. She rubbed her eyes and saw him.

  “Daddy, I’m scared.”

  He wiped a tear from his face and smiled up at her. “I know, baby. I know. You have to jump for me now, can you do that? Can you jump for me?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know,
Belle.”

  There was no way to climb the tree. It was a tall pine and the trunk ran smooth up the first of the branches ten feet above.

  “I thought you weren’t afraid of big bad monsters,” said Ben, trying his hardest to not let fear creep into his voice.

  “This one’s different.”

  “Do you remember how I said that everything gets scared, even the biggest, nastiest things there are?”

  She sniffed. “Even the big monster?”

  “Especially the big monster. It’s okay to be scared, Belle. I’m scared, too.”

  “You are?”

  He held his arms up toward her and wanted to cry. “Yes. Yes, I’m scared. Please come back to me, Annabelle. Please.”

  She stood up and steadied herself on the trunk of the tree.

  “You’ll catch me, Daddy.”

  She jumped.

  Ben dropped his arms down as soon as she hit them and tried to match her momentum on the way to the ground. He pulled her body to his chest and rolled backward, taking the brunt of the fall.

  He lay there crying, holding her warm body to him, until Annabelle lifted her head and kissed his cheek.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Ben carried his daughter in one arm, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms clasped tightly around his neck, and supported Raines with the other. She used him as a crutch for her left leg, hopping forward on her right and keeping her bent, broken ankle off the ground. She pulled at the crusted black gunk on her torso, tearing away large chunks of it and throwing it to the side.

  Her breaths were quick and ragged; her face ashen and slick with sweat.

  “Almost there,” said Ben.

  The path had been slowly ascending for ten minutes as it worked its way up toward the base of the incline which led to Highway 70.

  Annabelle rested her head on Ben’s shoulder and looked at the trail behind them. She had been quiet ever since they left the clearing. Ben flattened his hand against her back and pressed her to him—would have pressed her farther if he knew it would keep her safe.

  “You see anything moving back there, Belle?”