by Jason Davis
So she let him be. He could just eat his supper when he was ready for it. She continued past him and knocked on Joel’s door.
“Honey, supper’s ready.”
No answer. She put her ear to the door, trying to hear Joel inside. It was quiet, so she wondered if he had drifted off to sleep. He had a long day, and she was certain he was tired. She wasn’t sure what she should do. He needed his sleep, he was a growing boy, but he also needed to eat.
She knocked again, louder this time.
“Honey?”
Her husband growled. “For crying out loud. He’s probably taking a nap. Either go in there and wake him up or leave the boy alone.”
She turned to glare at the man, but he had already turned back to the TV. What was so damn important? Why did he pay more attention to it than her or their son?
He was right, though. If she wanted Joel to eat, she had to go in and wake him up.
She opened the door, quietly stepping in. Everything was gone. No room, no Joel, nothing. Just…black.
“Joel?”
Tentacles of darkness shot out, swirling around her arms and legs, quickly grabbing her. She opened her mouth to scream, a piece of it slipping in and into her lungs. Her eyes widened as it lifted her off the ground. She watched as it slithered out of the room and into the hall, stretching like vines across the walls.
The TV cut out, the sound of boiling water in the kitchen quieted, and the lights flickered off. Nothing remained as everything faded to black.
CHAPTER 19
"From darkness comes light. Without the light, you would never know the dark. Two sides, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. If there is not one, the other cannot exist. So what is living in life and walking that enlightened path unless you know how to avoid the darkness?"
No... No, that isn’t right.
Father William looked around the large cathedral, then down at the empty pews. There was a peaceful serenity to the church when it was only him and God. He often found this was when he wrote some of his best sermons. Tonight was one of the exceptions. He seemed off this week. He knew why, but he shouldn't let it bother him. It wasn't anything he had to deal with, being actually forbidden to do anything directly. That didn't keep him from indirectly pushing. A soft whisper from an invisible voice to help nudge a wavering decision was often his best tools to fight evil. While he bellowed in his sermons, his whimper contained all the power. If only he could do more.
This should be different. This wasn't like what he was put there to do.
He wasn't sure if he truly believed that, though. What made this different than last year or the year before that? In many ways, it was all the same. The world was the same, and there really wasn't much point to any of it.
It hurt him to play by the rules. He was not one to do so, always walking that fine line between interference and guidance. He had felt the earliest pieces of the awakening years ago, finding a guardian he could guide to be here when it happened. He had hoped he would be able to prepare him more. He befriended Rob when they had moved to town, but Alletto was not strong in the path of God.
Why Father likes to pick those not strong in their convictions as his most needed warriors has always confounded me, but I’m not one to question.
“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’ While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.”
In the empty room, he felt the echo reverberate deep in his essence.
His eyes closed and he let his chin fall to his chest. It really was all coming to an end. Everything he had witnessed. The beauty that had come and gone and come again. These people who bustled around him, living their busy lives. The babies who came and grew into parents, continuing the cycle he watched again and again, enjoying it each time.
Why should he prepare for a service this weekend? If it was all going to just fall apart, what was the point? The faithful part of him told him it was to give hope, but how could he give what he did not possess? Was that true? Had he lost his faith? Would he, who had seen so much, lived so much, finally be brought down?
The darkness worked its way into him. That had to be it. He had felt it when it first woke, both cursing and celebrating its awakening. At first, he hadn’t known what had reemerged from such a slumber, but had felt the celestial stirrings, the energy being pulled around him. His initial feeling had been hope. He knew what was coming, hoping maybe he had found an ally for the pending fight.
When he heard a pounding on the church door, he opened his eyes and looked toward the back of the room. Father William didn’t need to look to know who was out there. He had felt its awakening, its growing presence, and knew it was getting stronger. Although the night came, he knew there was more than just the earthly dark descending on the sleepy little community.
It was just another demon, society’s fictional monster, on the doorstep. What society had created in its stories. There were no true demons, not in the sense people thought. There were many different things only seen in fiction, as the true world hid deep in the shadows. In one form or another, many of them were what was once known as angels, like himself.
Time was a funny thing. Many people wanted it to go on forever. Father William thought that had to be based on the fear of death because if people actually knew what living forever entailed, they would never seek it out. It did things to the creatures that were eternal. Some minds warped as things were forgotten. Some just got bored, found a hidden shadow, and rested until they were disturbed. Others dabbled as much as was allowed, but didn’t interfere because interference brought punishment.
The creature outside, the one he had once called brother, had slept peacefully until something had changed. What happened to spawn this madness outside these doors?
Why had he awoken now?
Father William was nearly alone. Just one angel with one guardian who had not fully accepted his nature. It brought back memories of David. He hadn't thought of him in ages, and what he did remember didn't feel real. With time, there was always that haze, desire amplifying what you had versus what was wanted.
David had been one of the good ones. Maybe Rob would be one of the good ones, too. He had a good heart and his family meant a lot to him.
He heard the pounding on the door again. He stood just inside it, his hand inches away from the thick mahogany that strengthened the gates into this house of God. Through the door, he felt what had become of his brother. It didn't matter what shape or body he took. He recognized that inner presence. It wasn't like what people referred to as a soul. For them, it was something more. A piece of the celestial universe connecting them to the plane beyond. It was also another piece of their prison that kept them as a part of this place.
Father William’s hand hovered, not wanting to touch it. He could feel the rotting presence trying to seep into the wood. He felt the light slipping away, tentacles reaching out, trying to swirl around him.
Did his brother think he could take him like he had taken the others? Did he not recognize him? Or had his madness grown that deep?
Of course he was mad. They had all grown into their own madness, this world having not been what any of them ever expected. The question is in what form their madness manifested.
And what does that say about me?
He opened the door and stared out into the night, not seeing his brother. Instead, there was an older couple walking by, smiling at him and waving as they continued along the sidewalk. A car drove by, and he could hear more on Main Street just a block away. The night was serene and peaceful, not the menace and chaos he had felt just a moment before.
Is my madness that of imaging my brother’s awakening? Are there even missing children, or is that also in my head?
He closed the door, then fell into the nearest pew, bowing his head in prayer.
"Dear Heavenly Father, g
uide me so I may help them."
As always, there was no answer. Father never answered directly anymore. His answers consisted of action, not words.
"He doesn't listen. Not anymore. He's left us."
Father William jumped, raising his head to see a little boy standing in the aisle. Those dark tentacles swayed in the air around him. The boy was one Father William recognized, but not the one he thought he would see standing there. He was young, his hair so caked with dirt, it was hard to tell what color it once was. His skin was pale, his tattered clothes hanging from him. His coal-black eyes stared off into space, occasionally glancing at the stained glass windows lining the church.
"Who are you?" the angelic priest asked, realizing this wasn't one of his brothers. This was some other creature, one he didn't recognize. There was pure evil behind those eyes. For the first time since his creation, he was frightened. It brought question to everything he thought he knew.
His Father was the Alpha and Omega, so where had this evil come from if not from him?
A tentacle of darkness shot toward him, striking him in the chest. He felt the intense cold and hate trying to darken him, just as it was the whole town.
He had seen that, hadn't he? How this darkness seeped into everything, corrupting all it touched. This town was slowly descending into the dark. He saw the fights escalating, the rising of evil and sin. Even the strongest in the faith gave in to pride and boastfulness.
He felt how they all stemmed from this beast, how it wanted them all. The hunger was immense, starving for their sin. It wanted him, too, but was confused at how he seemed different. It reached for him like it reached out and touched the couple Father William had seen outside. It wasn't pulling them in yet. He could watch as it withered at the good inside them. By the end of the block, that couple, who had warmly greeted him, screamed at each other, blaming one another for infidelities that never happened. This beast had pushed at something inside them. Later tonight, if they didn’t find themselves, one would probably kill the other.
He knew it was forbidden, but the priest pushed gently at a memory they shared—the two of them at church when their son had been baptized. Hoping that would be enough, he focused his attention back on the creature in the child skin before him.
"Get out!" the priest bellowed, shaking the walls around him. He stood to tower over the boy, the child-like face looking at him, confused, as the black tentacle was forced away, a light shining around Father William. "I said get…out!”
The child was gone, the church empty. The priest closed his eyes, not able to restrain the tears.
"Father, how are we ever going to save this world?"
He sat back down in the pew, waiting for an answer he knew would not come.
CHAPTER 20
“So why are we heading out here?” Ally looked at David as he pulled onto the little hidden back road. It was four miles out of town and tucked away, not able to be seen from the road. Everyone from the area knew about it. In the light of day, it looked more like an abandoned driveway than a road.
It was one of the many popular make out spots outside of town, right along a stretch of creek that most people just called Little Sandy.
“Well, it was somewhere away from everything.”
“Oh, not for some other reason.”
He looked over at her, seeing a little smile that he couldn’t help but return, and shook his head.
“No, just to talk. Although...” He stretched it out as he said it, knowing he was being coy.
This was the kind of playful banter they had known most of their lives. As a young boy and girl, their banter had been innocent. Getting older, it had changed and became boy against girl because girls had cooties. Years later, mix in teenage hormones raging, and that closeness brought on something else. They were friends, knew everything about one another, so when they had both gotten drunk at a party, barely able to drive down the two-lane road, the inevitable happened.
David might have had a little bit of a concussion. He wasn’t sure. Some asshole had nailed him with an empty beer bottle when he snuck off to take a piss in a cornfield. He never saw who threw it and everyone had laughed. It hadn’t mattered as he had been three sheets to the wind by then.
So he had been drunk and she was tipsy. They drove under thirty miles per hour down a highway that most people would have been going ninety on. David kept slowing down, the road becoming harder to focus on. Eventually, the car rolled into a ditch, neither of them feeling like trying to get it out. Instead, a longing had started. They were out there alone, and after what seemed like an eternity along the side of the road, he pulled her into his arms.
From that moment on, they had played coy. Neither of them remembered what really happened. They might have gone all the way, but it didn’t matter. It was the beginning of changing how they acted around each other. The chemistry was there, they knew that, and the friendship was there. What more did they need?
She pulled him out of his thoughts by giving him a playful thump on the shoulder. He rocked back, his smile deepening as he rubbed the spot she hit him. She was never one to hold back on her punches.
Damn, that stung.
“Cool it. I thought we came out here to talk.”
“We did.” His smile disappearing, he looked back to the road as he eased around another curve. The area was covered in trees for another couple feet, making it pitch black around them.
David slammed on the brakes, both of them thrown forward in their seats. A car, its lights off, blocked the road. The brakes locked on the gravel, pebbles flying as he turned the wheel back and forth, trying to keep control as the car slid toward the other vehicle. Having been going too fast, not expecting something to block his path, he didn’t know if he could stop in time.
“Dammit,” he cursed under his breath, his teeth grinding as he watched the other car getting closer. He should have known better. This was a party spot. He should have figured somebody else would be out here.
Thankfully, with just a few feet to spare, the car stopped.
David looked over to see Ally glaring, those fiery eyes burning into him. How those eyes could always make his breath catch when he was caught in their gaze.
“Well, I guess we won’t be alone out here,” he said as he eased the car off to the side of the road, watching out for the tree stump he knew was there somewhere. When the canopy of trees above them thinned, the moonlight filtered through, making it possible to see the stump farther down.
“Yeah, who would have thought.”
He turned off the lights, and couldn't help but chuckle a little as he looked at the car. “Looks like we interrupted something hot and heavy.”
It was obvious by its steamed windows. They could see two shapes moving around inside, quickly working to separate themselves.
He looked over at Ally and saw she was chuckling, as well.
“You know, they probably think we’re cops. You did pull up with your lights on.”
“Crap.”
He had forgotten. It had been so long since he’d come out there with anyone. The unsaid rule was you turned off your lights once you left the main road. Only the chief kept his lights on. All the other police had never known about the area, seeing as none of them were local and it was way off the beaten path. David thought the new officer, the one he’d talked to last night, had tried to find it. He wasn’t sure if he ever did.
A door opened in the other car and someone tried to climb out, falling forward onto the gravel.
David winced. “Ooh, that’s gotta hurt.”
Ally nodded. “Yep.”
“I should probably get out and let them know-”
“You think that’s going to go over well?”
“Not really, but they're going to see we’re not a squad car, probably coming back here anyway.”
“True.”
David pushed open his door and climbed out.
He saw the shape trying to scramble up, his back to them. It was ki
nd of funny to watch because his legs were still in the car as he fought to pull them free. He caught glimpses of clothes quickly being slipped on while the guy rushed to get around into the front seat. Both of them moved frantically, not looking back at David’s car at all.
The man slammed the door as David approached. Then lights flashed, the red brake lights glowing as the car started. David got pelted with rocks as the driver slammed down on the accelerator. The car fishtailed, more rocks flying back, the sound like hail hitting a metal roof, the ping, ping, ping as they shot from beneath the tire and hitting David’s car.
The car flew out of there before David even had a chance to say anything.
Instead, he stood there, watching as the car went around the curve a half-mile down the gravel road, then flew off the road into the nearest cornfield. They were gone. Running because they thought David and Ally were cops. They had probably been drinking, too.
David shook his head and got back into the car.
“You know, when they find out it was just us, they're going to be pissed,” Ally said, looking at him.
“Yep.”
“You should have turned off your lights.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be out here. Hell, most the town’s out looking for your brother. I thought this would be a safe place to just come and get away from it all.” He looked over at her and saw her frown. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Her face softened a little as she nodded, looking away. It seemed a little brighter out there, the full moon shining down and casting everything around them in a light blue glow.
“How are you doing?” David asked, breaking the silence that had crept in on them.
“I’m okay.”
“That’s good. How’s school.”