Dark Light Book Three (Dark Light Anthology)

by Larsen, Christian A.

Shelby tried to answer. Her own voice came out muffled, fuzzy and indistinct even to her own ears. Angelique looked her way from the dance floor, and Shelby quickly closed her mouth. She nodded her head in the general direction of the voices, hoping that would suffice.

  “Did she hear us?” A second voice, edged with excitement, asked. This one was a deep baritone, a little harder to make out than the first through the general background noise.

  “I think so,” the first voice said.

  “She didn’t answer,” the second pointed out doubtfully.

  “Maybe she can’t.”

  “Then how do you know she heard?”

  Buzzing filled the thoughtful silence. “I know,” the first voice said, ending the debate. His soothing pitch purred into her ear. “We found her.”

  A third voice, female this time, trilled a honeyed alto greeting for attention. The others calmed down and allowed her to tell her story. “Angelique’s dress is so beautiful, don’t you think? The soft green caresses that tan skin like a lover. But Bloomingdales would prefer the green of cash. Too bad darling Angelique didn’t see the security cameras.”

  Shelby giggled. Angelique enjoyed the thrill of shoplifting, and even though Shelby hadn’t heard the green dress was stolen, it was entirely possible. Out on the dance floor, Lila tried to join the two couples dancing in a loose semi-circle. Angelique spun away from Lila, a cruel swirl of chiffon snubbing the uninspired pastel cotton. Lila, not as oblivious to social nuance as Shelby first thought, responded by winding her body around Mathias as part of a titillating dance move, showing up Angelique’s saucy spin with sheer suggestiveness. One of the voices laughed at the tiny frown line under Angelique’s dimple.

  “Not happy, not happy at all,” the clear tenor commented. Murmurs surrounded her as the other countless voices agreed. “Well, we shall see how Angelique fares after the arrest.” Shelby coughed to disguise her surprise from her friends across the room. “We always pay for our sins,” the voice went on. “Always.” The sadness deepened his tenor to a laden baritone. His remorse touched her, and she closed her eyes so sight would not distract her as he began to tell his story.

  “I met him when he came to my church as a guest. He challenged the youth group leader teaching Sunday school, brandishing his superior scholarship like a sword and charging ahead on his righteous crusade. I liked him. Here was the kind of Christian I wanted to be: modern, rational, and using intellect to bring me closer to God. I sought him out to talk about religion, dragging my friends over to hear him speak. He was so smart. He invited us to research everything he said, daring us to find proof he was wrong. None of us ever did. If we found something that looked as if it contradicted him, he had a counter-argument ready. I stopped looking things up after a while. He taught us how to do it too. I soaked up his arguments, his so-called “proofs”. We became believers, believers in him.

  “Soon, he was making prophecies, revelations that came to him in dreams. Even then, I kept believing. It happened so slowly, I never realized how ridiculous it sounded when you put it all together, never understood how he was playing me. I was convinced I knew what kind of man he was, and convinced I followed him of my own free will.

  “My best friend started to have doubts. He questioned and was not satisfied with the answers. I refused to see my friend’s points when he came to me to talk about the whole thing. But they bothered me, so I did what I always did by then when I had a question. I went to him. He told me to kill my friend. And I was so arrogant, so sure of myself, I got a knife and tried to cut his throat. I was actually disappointed when the police saved him from me. I went to jail, thinking I had martyred myself for my religion, when all I had really done was turn myself into a lackey. I lost everything, including my best friend because I thought I was smarter than anyone else. I’d sinned in pride, and now I must pay the price.”

  The tenor fell silent, and a young soprano took up her tale. One at a time, different voices came forth, tales of their sins spilling from unseen lips. Shelby assigned them the faces she saw in the mural of Purgatory, the initial tenor voice taking the face of a Sisyphean figure high above the others on a mountain road. Sinners towing wagons, cringing from the bite of whips and toting endless baskets of water all acquired speech, their stories spinning an epic in her mind. Her head swirled, and Shelby was thankful she was sitting down. Battling back to awareness, she realized one of her friends was poking her arm.

  “Come on, Shelby. Time to go. The band is wrapping up for the night.” She looked around, realizing the club had filled with people while she listened to the voices. Mathias turned towards the rest of the group, holding her hand to pull her out of her seat. The sounds of the nightclub returned, no trace of disembodied speakers lingered. Shelby shook off the last of her daze and followed him.

  * * *

  She passed off the whole experience as a delusion from too much alcohol. She didn’t even think of it again until the next time she went to Dante’s, a few days later. As soon as she walked in the door, the sounds of the dimmed and her friends sounded as if they were speaking in whispers. The strange chattering hovered in the distance, getting louder and louder. She didn’t catch much of what her friends said, about one word in three. As Shelby was about to abandon the attempt to hear them, Lila mentioned Angelique.

  “…You hear?” Shelby missed the next few words, picking up the line again as Lila mouthed, “…arrested!”

  “For what,” she shouted, a little too loudly she guessed because Mathias glared at her.

  “Shop…” the rest escaped under the din, but Shelby got the idea.

  “Bloomingdales?” She couldn’t hear herself as she talked. Lila asked her to repeat her question, then nodded.

  So, it's true. Shelby gathered from the scattered bits she could make out that the store prosecuted Angelique for grand larceny. She barely managed to catch the five-figure amount Lila produced. Angelique always did have expensive taste. Lila might survive in this clique after all, Shelby mused. Aside from a bit of juicy gossip, the new girl had improved her wardrobe, choosing a clingy knit dress in a bolder color than last week’s pale palette.

  The rest of the conversation vanished as the familiar buzzing noise overtook Shelby’s hearing completely. By the time her friends ventured to the dance floor, she couldn’t hear anything at all over the noise in her head.

  That’s when she heard the voices again.

  “…back. She’s listening.” Sisyphus came through again, more distinct than the rest. A chorus of others followed. They talked over one another, eager to push forward into her attention.

  “One at a time,” Sisyphus reminded them. Shelby sought and found his painted face high on the mountaintop of Purgatory. He hushed the chorus, and by some method Shelby couldn’t discern, they chose the next soloist.

  “I saw them in the parking lot,” said a deep baritone, full of mischief.

  Shelby scanned the painting and found an appropriate face, a thin blonde man picking apples. “After everyone else left. Angelique warned Lila to stay away from Mathias, but Lila laughed and said she couldn’t steal a man who came willingly. Well, Angelique took a swing at Lila. They fought right there in the parking lot, and when it was all over, Angelique took off in a huff, leaving Lila on her butt in the gravel. Except she also left Lila with an ink tag from her dress.” His giggle pitched in a higher octave than his speaking voice, reinforcing the mischief hinted in his tone. “It was Lila who told the police where to find Angelique.” The apple picker receded into the background, and the chorus debated who would come forth next.

  Shelby spared a glance at the dance floor, watching Lila and Mathias snuggle close in a slow dance. She had no idea what song played; the voices were the only things she could hear now. The air of the club didn’t help either, as there was no heavy thump to clue her in on the beat of the music. The pair certainly looked cozy, bumping and grinding like the star attraction of a porn flick. Assured her friends were still occupied, she started li
stening to the next voice. They said the most amazing things. Some of it was gossip about people around town. Other times, it was like a weird game of truth or dare, as the voices told her their innermost shame or darkest personal secrets.

  Even when she got up to dance, they talked to her, providing a running dialogue throughout the night. A few times, she tried to respond, either by talking out loud or nodding her head. Every time she tried, they couldn’t hear her. If she tried too hard, they went away. Shelby didn’t want them to go away. She was beginning to like them.

  * * *

  “Why do you keep coming back to this place, Shelby?” Jessica whined as they entered Dante’s Circle for the third time that week. “This place is so over.”

  “I know,” Shelby said.

  Jessica wasn’t a person Shelby hung out with often, but tonight she was the only one Shelby could persuade to return to this club. Her regular crowd had moved on to the Thanatos two blocks away. She couldn’t tell Jessica the real reason she continued to come here. Shelby claimed her usual spot, her eyes gliding over the familiar faces of Purgatory. Jessica wandered to the bar for drinks, and Shelby hoped a good-looking guy would distract her there for a while. Keeping up a conversation strained her when what she really wanted to do was listen. Shelby fancied herself their confessor, and the voices in her head were tormented souls she helped to do their penance. She rather liked that idea.

  Shelby spent so much time listening to them lately; she no longer spent much time with her friends. They were beginning to notice. Lila didn’t send Shelby an invitation to her birthday bash last week, a sign her status slipped precariously towards second-stringer. Shelby had never been excluded from a major party before. She caught sight of Jessica, bored and alone at the bar. Perhaps Jessica was right, Shelby thought as she looked over the sparse crowd. This place is over. Besides, it really wasn’t necessary to come here anymore.

  She could hear the voices everywhere now.

  The Monk

  By JT Lewis

  The robin’s song was repeated by another from across the garden. A warm breeze meandered through the roses, carrying with it the sweet scent of cooking corn from the distillery across town. The man stood still for a moment, his eyes closed as he let the unexpected breeze cool him off from his efforts.

  He smiled to himself at the thought; this was a joy, his efforts spent in the garden far from a chore. Opening his eyes once again, he took in the splendor of his little corner of the world. Bringing this beauty to the world was his one distraction from his work, his mission, and he reveled in the earthy pastime.

  Removing the wide brimmed straw hat he used for his gardening, he wiped the band as well as his forehead with a handkerchief. Replacing the hat onto his head, he then removed his glasses, drying the lenses as he took in the blurry colors surrounding him with a smile. Upon replacing the glasses, he again looked upon the circular garden before him, thankful that the church had agreed to let him do this project in the previously unused courtyard.

  Roses of every conceivable color filled the space in hues of red, yellow, pink, and white. A stone pathway meandered through the garden, allowing one to experience almost every specimen up close. A concrete bench sat next to a small gurgling fountain halfway through the path, a place one could relax and leisurely take in the scent and splendor of the beautiful garden.

  Sunny from morning until late afternoon, the garden was surrounded by an old stone wall, each end butting up to one of the two different majestic parish buildings that anchored the space. Access to the garden was gained through a small alleyway between these structures, a dark road ending at a bright and heavenly destination.

  The man smiled once again at the analogy of life this place represented to him, his work having taken him along many a dark path. His purpose was true, however, and his reward in the end would be beyond description.

  A movement off to his left caught the Monk’s eye, and he spent several moments trying to discern what it was. Finally, his eyes focused on the culprit, it having been camouflaged in the mulch, the black lined brown patches blending almost perfectly with the ground cover…a snake!

  He did not move for several seconds, watching the eight-foot creature wind its way through the rose bushes. Waiting until the snake wound its way a little further, he slowly and quietly made his way to the snake’s position, finally reaching down and deftly clasping it behind the neck.

  Holding the snake’s head up so as to look it in the eye, the reptile started coiling itself around the man.

  “Adeodatus, what are you doing out here, naughty boy escaped again,” the Monk said with a smile.

  He then felt the familiar constrictions around his body as his snake, his friend, showed affection on him the only way he knew how.

  Thinking for a moment to remember the day’s date, he realized that it was indeed time for another feeding of the Burmese Python.

  “Let’s get you home and find a nice, juicy rat for you, shall we?”

  Walking back to his quarters, the Monk smiled at his pet, enjoying the comforting hugs. The snake was only a little over a year old, and it would easily make twelve feet within its lifetime.

  Entering his quarters, he hung his hat on one of the pegs by the door before taking the snake over to his pen, thinking he would probably need to make the pen bigger soon.

  Pulling a frozen rat out of the freezer, he set it in the sink to thaw. He removed a knife from a drawer in his dark kitchen before picking up a deep-red apple from a basket on the counter. Adding a half pack of saltine crackers to his selections, he worked his way over to the primitive table for a late lunch.

  He would try to get a nap after his meal as he had much work to do this night. Another infraction had come to his attention, and it needed to be dealt with in short order.

  His vows demanded it.

  It will be a busy night, he thought to himself as he sat down on the sturdy, but unadorned chair.

  Bowing his head, he crossed himself before reverently kissing the cross around his neck. Taking up the apple and the knife, he patiently peeled its skin before cutting it up into seven equal pieces, eating each piece slowly with a cracker.

  A busy night indeed.

  * * *

  He finished wiping his glasses and drying the lenses. The perspiration from his exertions was a minor annoyance compared to the exhilaration of his work.

  He had thought that he might have been able to get through to Bill tonight, but in the end, he had not. A sigh escaped the Monk’s lips as he pondered his client’s stubbornness.

  “Nothing to be done about it now,” he stated with finality.

  They had made great strides on the other matters however, the paperwork. Bill was greatly concerned about his family’s future should anything happen to him, and the Monk had spent a great deal of time with his client going over bank statements and insurance policies.

  Everything seemed in order; Bill’s wife and daughter would be more than adequately cared for when Bill left this world. He had even congratulated Bill on his forethought in these matters; many of his clients had needed much more in the way of financial counseling on his visits.

  All that was left was the electrical “problem” to be finished. Drugging his client had left him paralyzed, and the electrical wires now in his hand would make it look as if he had been electrocuted while working on an outlet. He had given last rites to Bill only moments ago, and now stood in front of the electrical panel in the basement, ready to flip the breaker on his way out.

  Crossing himself and holding the cross in his right hand, he flipped the breaker on with his left. The flopping noise upstairs told him that the current was indeed doing what it was intended to do. Kissing the cross, he let it fall on its chain to his chest, then called goodbye to Bill before turning and leaving out the basement steps.

  Making his way quickly through the dark back yard, he effortlessly hurdled the back fence and quietly skulked past the neighbor’s house and onto the next street.<
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  Turning left on the tree-lined street, he looked up at the canopy above him and marveled at one of God’s greatest creations. Creating both shade and habitat for birds and small animals, as well as producing oxygen for all living things. God had indeed outdone himself with the creation of a tree.

  Feeling the harmony in his soul, he started walking slowly back to his quarters, enjoying the warm night air and the sounds of the summer eve that surrounded him.

  Remembering the latex gloves still on his hands, he carefully removed first one then the other, patiently folding them into a neat bundle before he placed them into his expansive pocket. A smile formed on his lips as his fingers brushed against the old leather testament also in his pocket, the comforting touch of his old friend always relaxing him.

  After a few more steps, he started whistling a tune, the eerie melody mixing easily with the cricket’s chirp to fill the quiet night air with a haunting harmony.

  * * *

  The monk returned to his quarters, hanging his hat on the pegs by the door with the others. Moving to the sink, he turned on the water before unbuttoning the soutane, reverently hanging it, too, on a peg by the door. Removing his undershirt and shorts, he then headed back to the sink. Taking up the large bar of lye soap, he started by lathering up his hands under the cold water before moving up his arms, scrubbing hard as he concentrated on cleansing one section of his body at a time. The ritual continued as he worked through the rest of his body, finished only when he rinsed off his head under the faucet.

  Removing a threadbare towel from a hook on the wall, he then dried everything, again, seeming to punish his skin further by the excessive rubbing. It was like he was trying to rub some unseen filth from his body. Clean undergarments appeared from a small drawer next to the sink, and he put these on quickly. Walking over to the wall, he removed an old well-worn robe from another hook, slipping its comforting fabric over his head.

  Pulling his leather testament from the soutane’s pocket, he headed across the room, kneeling in front of a small table as he lit a candle. He then crossed himself, kissed the cross on his neck, and opened the small book. Finding the right page, he started reading the dead language like it was spilling off of the page, the words running together in what sounded like a low mumble.