Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  Missing persons posters.

  Dozens upon dozens of them.

  Faded faces stared back at Cade and Gabrielle from some of the fliers on the wall in front of them; here an elderly woman, there a young boy, over there a man in a bus driver's uniform. People from all walks of life and all ethnicities were displayed on those peeling pieces of paper.

  Whatever had happened here, it had started slowly, Cade realized, one victim at a time. Slowly enough that their loved ones had gone looking for them and, failing to discover what had happened to them, had gone to the authorities for help of an official nature. Apparently the authorities had failed to locate them as well, hence the missing persons posters.

  The sight of all those faces staring out at them gave them both a case of the willies. When Gabrielle suggested they keep moving, Cade didn't object.

  3

  With no better options available to them, the pair continued on foot, following the road in search of someone who might be able to tell them what had happened while they were away. As they left the center of town behind and found themselves on residential streets, they saw more evidence of whatever had happened here. Many of the homes they encountered had been abandoned, most in a hurry it appeared, and several had been ransacked by those passing along at some later point in time. Most everything of value had been stripped from each building, but Cade did manage to find a dented can of tuna fish at the back of a cupboard, perhaps overlooked or discarded by those who had come before them. It was the first food that either of them had since returning from the Beyond and it didn't last more than a few seconds between them once Cade peeled off the lid.

  We're going to need more food, and water, definitely water, before much longer, he thought as they continued walking. The question was where they were going to find it.

  They hadn't seen anyone since they'd left that first house behind. No one had come up behind them since they had set out walking nor had any cars passed them going in the other direction. Hell, they hadn't seen even a single person since arriving back on this side of the Veil. Not a single soul. It was as if the land had risen up and swallowed everyone whole, leaving only their material possessions behind.

  "Earth to Cade."

  He started at the sound of her voice, turned to find Gabbi watching him closely.

  "You okay?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Yeah. I'm good. Just thinking is all."

  "'Bout what?"

  "It's too quiet."

  "What do you mean?" she asked. He could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn't necessarily disagreeing with his observation but rather trying to draw him out, to get him to elucidate on the topic a bit more and so he complied.

  "We've been on this road for a couple hours now and we haven't seen a single vehicle. No cars, no trucks, no motorcycles. Nothing. Doesn't that strike you as weird?"

  Gabby's brow creased as she considered what he'd said. "Maybe it's just a quiet stretch of roadway?"

  "Okay, then where are the planes?"

  "The planes?" she repeated, then leaned back and looked up at the sky above.

  "Yeah, the planes." Cade followed her gaze with his own, raising one hand to shield his face from the sun's glare before remembering that the haze above hid even the sun from them. "I haven't seen a single flight passing overhead since we got underway. No commercial jets. No small craft. Nothing."

  "Maybe that cloud cover is just too low?" Gabby said, as she turned, searching for the glint of light off a metal fuselage high above.

  "We're in a triangle formed by three major airports; JFK, La Guardia, and Newark. Four, if you count Hartford General. Commercial flights should be passing overhead every ten or fifteen minutes. Even if we couldn't see them through the haze, we should be hearing something, right?"

  Gabrielle shrugged. "Maybe. All that cloud cover has a way of dampening sound though."

  Cade had to admit that was a possibility, but he wasn't convinced. Something had happened here, something big, and he was starting to suspect that it wasn't confined to just this region.

  It seemed clear to him that the local area had been evacuated. That would account for both the empty houses and the lack of people.

  And the looting, too, he thought, as those who chose not to evacuate began taking matters into their own hands when their own supplies ran out. But what had caused the evacuation in the first place?

  That, he didn't know.

  And that's what had him worried.

  Evacuating a large-scale area wasn't an easy task and the government wouldn't make the decision to do so lightly. That meant that whatever it was that had caused the evacuation had to be significant.

  But what?

  They were in western Connecticut, which ruled out major weather problems like hurricanes, tornadoes and even nor'easters. The same went for earthquakes; there just weren't any major fault systems that they needed to worry about around here.

  A large forest fire wasn't out of the question and, given the state of the sky above, might actually be a reasonable guess as to what had driven everyone off, but something told him that wasn't it either.

  If pressed, he would have said it felt more dangerous than that, but he couldn't have said why or what he meant by that exactly. It was just something he felt deep in his gut and his years on the force, never mind his time in the Order, had taught him to trust that implicitly.

  Still, there wasn't much more he could do at the moment than keep his eyes open and his wits about him. He knew Gabrielle would do the same.

  Around mid-morning something caught his eye through the trees ahead of them and as they drew closer he could see that it was the entrance to a gated community.

  Or what was left of it, rather.

  The complex was surrounded by a brick wall about eight feet high that ended on either side of the entrance in a pair of thick, square pillars. A wrought-iron gate hung between the pillars, barring entry unless one had the proper key card handy. A small guard shack stood in the middle of the drive just beyond the gate. In other words, it was a typical gated community, the kind that could be found anywhere in rural America.

  What wasn't typical was the barricade that had been erected in front of that gate.

  Or rather, the remains of that barricade.

  Several vehicles had been arrayed in a semi-circle in front of the entrance and behind those stacks of furniture, appliances, and even a piano barred the way forward, no doubt designed to leave the invading force at the mercy of the defenders arrayed on the other side of the gate.

  One glance at the burned-out shells of the cars that were now pushed to the sides and the twisted remains of the gate beyond them told Cade all he needed to know about how effective that strategy had been.

  Deciding to take a look, they carefully climbed over the barricade and entered the community proper. Once past the gates, things didn't look much better. The condominiums were grouped in sets of four per building, with two units per floor, and it was immediately clear from the smashed windows and forced doors on the units that Cade could see that it was a long shot that any of them remained undisturbed. Smashed furniture and other belongings littered the grassy areas between the buildings, items the invaders no doubt considered less than useful.

  Perhaps most disturbing was the graffiti that appeared on several of the units, crosses marked in red spray paint that eerily reminded Cade of Templar symbols.

  There was a grassy park in the center of the community – now overgrown and wild-looking – and in the center of that park they found the remains of a large fire. The pile of ash, charcoaled wood, and scorched earth that had been left behind was a good ten feet in diameter.

  Must have been one hell of a blaze, Cade thought, as he looked it over. A large white stone, half buried in the soot and ash and just out of reach, caught his eye. He scrounged about in the brush until he found a long stick which he used to poke at it. Doing so caused the stone to roll toward him, revealing that it wasn't a stone at all but rathe
r the shattered remains of a human skull, the forehead cracked and the lower jaw missing. The two empty eye sockets seemed to stare back at him, as if accusing him of disturbing its rest.

  Now that he'd seen the skull for what it was, more bones jumped out at him throughout the ash pile; he counted the remains of at least a dozen people, maybe more, amidst the debris. Whether these were the remains of the attackers or the defenders, he didn't know, but it was clear that someone had paid a heavy price for what was left of this little hunk of paradise.

  "Cade."

  He looked up at the sound of Gabrielle's voice and then followed the direction of her nod to where she was staring at something on the far side of the park. At first, he didn't understand what she was looking at but then motion caught his eye and he spotted the dog moving slowly through the tall grass, its gaze fixed directly upon them. It wasn't alone, either; he counted five more moving about behind the first.

  The pack was a motley one, from the big, grey-coated husky with the mismatched eyes, clearly the pack leader, to the pair of small Chihuahua mixes standing uncertainly in the rear. In between were a couple of Australian shepherds and a barrel-chested Rottweiler. The dogs might have been someone's pets once, but their tangled coats and lean bodies made it clear that they had gone feral long ago. Right now they were still sizing the situation up, trying to figure out just how much of a threat the interlopers into their territory might be, but Cade knew it wouldn't be long before the pull of their hunger got the better of them.

  It was time to go.

  Cade stood suddenly, shouting at the dogs as he did so, and was relieved to see them turn tail and disappear back into the grass in the direction they'd come from.

  Conflict avoided, the pair made their way back to the entrance, climbed carefully back over the barricade, and continued on their way.

  As Cade walked on, something about the last half hour nagged at him and it was awhile before he make sense of it.

  How bad did things have to be for someone to leave their pets behind when evacuating?

  4

  More determined than ever to figure out what was going on, Cade and Gabrielle continued heading east on foot, following the road as it wound its way through the trees. They had yet to see another human being since arriving back in the world earlier that morning, a fact that had Gabrielle growing increasingly concerned.

  When she'd located him in the Beyond, Gabrielle done what she could to convince Cade of who she was and to plead with him to return to the world with her. She'd told him that the Templars were under attack from within and that his men, including Sergeant Riley, needed him if they were to win out and keep the Order intact. She'd been betting on his loyalty, both to her and to his team, to pull him out of his self-imposed exile

  She'd made no mention of the Adversary or of how the fallen angel had twisted the ritual that was supposed to bind him forever into something that ultimately set him loose, nor did she say anything about the six other members of the Adversary's scream who were out there somewhere, wandering the world with him.

  She'd been terrified that Cade would refuse to return, should he know the truth. He'd banished himself to the Beyond when he'd thought his actions had led to her death; what would he do if he thought those same actions had doomed all life on earth to the Adversary's service? She didn't even want to think about it.

  But that first glimpse of the sky outside of that old farmhouse told her something was seriously wrong and each new discovery increased the chill in her bones that much more. She'd been able to write off that first house as just an abandoned property they'd accidentally returned to, but the subsequent houses and the ruins of that condo complex, complete with its charred pile of human bones, made it impossible for her to ignore the voice in the back of her head telling her that they were too late.

  The Adversary had won.

  She had no idea how to break that news to Cade, however, so she simply kept her mouth shut and kept putting one foot in front of the other, following where he led. Eventually, the opportunity would arise and she'd tell him then.

  They'd been walking for nearly an hour when Cade broke the silence and called, "Hold up."

  She was a few steps ahead of him and came to a weary stop at the sound of his voice. She was surprised at how poorly she felt; the heat and humidity must be draining her strength faster than she thought.

  What I wouldn't give for some air conditioning right about now.

  She turned to find Cade staring at a spot on the side of the road, right in the center of the bend they were currently rounding. She followed his gaze and looked the spot over, but didn't see anything unusual. It looked like the same to her as the ground on either side; a few inches of gravel separated the road from the thick bramble-infested tree line just beyond.

  "What is it?" she asked. "What do you see?"

  Cade didn't answer her, at least not verbally. Instead, he stepped off the road and walked a few feet forward before reaching down and sticking his hand into a nasty-looking briar patch.

  She opened her mouth, intending to call out and tell him to stop before he hurt himself, but the words died stillborn in her throat as Cade straightened up, pulling the entire "briar patch" to the side with a sweep of his arm and revealing a metal post jutting up from out of the ground beneath it. As Cade pulled more of the camouflage tarp out of the way – for that was what the "briar patch" actually was – he revealed a thick chain running from the first post, across a narrow dirt access road, to a second post on the opposite side. The other end of the camouflage tarp stretched upward at an angle into the nearby trees, creating an illusion of overgrowth that concealed the road beneath it quite effectively.

  Gabrielle shook her head, mentally castigating herself for not noticing the camouflaged area. She'd missed it entirely. She hadn't seen any hint that something wasn't right with that section of the woods and she'd been looking right it.

  She moved to Cade's side. The road stretched deep into the woods just beyond, eventually running out of sight when it bent to the right a dozen yards ahead of them.

  "What do you think?" Cade asked.

  Gabrielle didn't hesitate.

  "Somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to hide this road, which means there's bound to be something interesting at the other end. I say we check it out."

  No matter what's at the other end, it has to be more interesting than what we've seen so far, she added mentally.

  That was good enough for Cade.

  They followed the rough dirt road for about a quarter mile into the woods, until it opened up into a wide clearing of soft green grass amidst the trees. A house stood in the middle of the clearing and, unlike the others they'd seen so far, this one looked intact.

  It was a two-story split-level, painted dark brown with beige trim. It had a shingled roof and a large bay window in the front. Or at least Gabrielle thought it was a bay window; it currently had a large sheet of plywood nailed over it, as did all the other windows that she could see, reminding her of the way people in the South would protect their homes in the lead-up to a tropical storm or hurricane.

  But this is New England. We don't get hurricanes like that, she reminded herself.

  Cade was already headed for the front door, but Gabrielle stayed were she was for a moment, glancing around at the woods surrounding them. It was quiet; too quiet. She didn't think she'd heard a single bird or even the buzz of an insect the whole time they'd been walking. It was as if the animal population had cleared out right along with the human one.

  Cleared out or died out.

  She shook her head, as if doing so could banish the thought, but her unease continued as she forced her feet into motion and moved to join Cade who was examining the front door.

  He straightened as she approached, pointing at the door in front of him.

  "Steel reinforced. No way we're getting through that."

  "Which means no one else did, either."

  Cade nodded. "Right. If that's the c
ase, there might still be something worthwhile inside. Let's check the back."

  They circled around to the back of the house. As Cade headed for the door, Gabrielle kept a watch on the rear yard and the woods just beyond. She spotted a small shed half-buried in the overgrown brush at the edge of the yard and made a mental note to check that for anything useful once they were done with the interior of the house.

  A sudden creak filled the air, making her jump, and when she turned she found Cade near one of the boarded-up rear windows, leaning his weight on the sword that he had jammed between the plywood and the wall of the house, causing it to move a few inches. As she watched he bore down on the weapon again, using the leverage it provided to force the nails holding the wood in place to pull free even more, until, at last, he could get his hands beneath it.

  Gabrielle hurried over to help.

  "Watch for the nails," Cade said between grunts of effort as he tugged on the wood. "Don't want to get tetanus."

  Gabrielle nearly laughed aloud.

  Tetanus? He was worried about tetanus? After the things they had faced in the Beyond, he was worried that she'd get scratched by a rusty nail? It was just so...Cade.

  Despite her amusement though, she knew he was right. Getting scratched could quickly lead to an infection and who the heck knew where they could find help for something like that around here? After all, they hadn't seen another living human being all afternoon. Better safe than sorry.

  The plywood finally popped loose, tumbling out of their hands, bouncing once on its edge before landing flat on the grass a few feet away. Cade ignored it, turning his attention to the window that the wood had been covering. As Gabrielle looked on, he pulled his sword free of its sheath, reversed his grip on it, and then used the heavy pommel to smash the glass.