Dark

by JD Jones

Chapter Nine

  The sun was almost down when the brothers of the Alliance fully materialized in the desolate place. Their deal with Dark allowed them to fully materialize in solid bodies from dusk until dawn and walk as shadow through the day. Of course, as shadow they had to be careful of being sighted. Living Shadows were not a normal part of the human plane. Shadows was an existence that belonged solely to the Dark. Moving in the shadows was easier than might be imagined. Few humans actually stared long enough or hard enough into the shadows around them to really see what was hidden there. They would be horrified to discover the multitudes of living entities that traveled through their ordinary shadows. Of course, many humans were familiar with moving shadows after dark. Their nightmares were created of such things. It was a mystery why humans looked long and hard at shadows after dark but never paid them any attention during the daylight hours when most of those of the Shadow plane were moving about.

  The desolate place was an abandoned warehouse in the now defunct warehouse district of the city. No one came out here any more except junkies and kids looking for rebellious thrills. It was abandoned to the decay of the city's fickle memory. Once a thriving part of the city's financial boom, the warehouses now stood as mute testimony to the bad decisions that forced the owners and suppliers to move farther south in search of communities with fewer taxes and easier regulatory commitments.

  Rats and other vermin roamed the warehouses now. Real estate agents had stopped trying to sell them off long ago. Taxes mounted until the city owned the majority of them. Still, nothing could be done with them. Any new construction would have to be done after the demolition of the buildings and all new ground water containment areas were built in. The cost was prohibitive as long as there was still plenty of land available to the east of the city. The warehouses had first been built because of money and were now decaying in abandonment because of money. Fitting, some would say. Greed killing off greed.

  It took a few minutes for them to survey the area and make sure nothing had changed since the last time they were there. Satisfied that all was as it needed to be, Gol organized them into teams. Ish and Tos were responsible for keeping their energies up. Of course, any of them coming across an opportunity to add to the collective energy level of the Alliance was obligated to do so. Vagrants and other miscreants of society were less likely to be traveling or staying out this way but sometimes one got lucky. They could only hope.

  Saph and Lah were responsible for their safety. They would monitor the environment and the plane of the humans for any danger. There was not a lot of danger to be concerned about but watching for something was better than having it sprung on you. They would probably grow bored long before something happened. But one never knew. And they might get lucky and find someone to add to the energy reserves they would need to stay physical here.

  Like Joe and his mother, all they needed to do was enlist the aid of a person long enough to make them a part of the Alliance mission. After they had joined the Alliance team, so to speak, whether verbally or through their actions, whatever the Alliance did with them was legal, under the Creator of Life's deal with humans. They could even kill them legally.

  Gol's task, while they were isolated in this place of desolation, would be see to their mothers-to-be and make sure all went well with their pregnancies. Everything was riding on those pregnancies, now. As long as the Creator of Life did not show up to send them to the Place of Chains, they would need to make sure their plan went according to design. It was the only way they could ensure their existence. Gol also had to deal with his seed, which was still out there. That was not going to be easy. The seed was out in the open now. It had more power than it really knew how to use, which made it dangerous and, because of its childlike comprehension of life and its experiences, it had no compunction about killing and destroying everything that got in its way. It would need energy to help its growth process, so Gol would start there.

  All energy was recorded in the human plane. Blood, fluids, spiritual energy. All made the news here if it had a large enough scope. He could watch the news and see the pattern of the seed. The seed would be looking for energy on very large levels. It would, most likely, be a very destructive process. Once identified, Gol could move. He had to stop it. He had to stop it before it stopped the Alliance. The existence of the seed was jeopardizing their entire plan.

  Kathy walked with her thoughts after dinner with John. They had talked about their meeting with the Gallots and that nothing really helpful had come of it. No surprise. The real reason for them to be here was to see if Marcie and Emil could add anything to what was already known from sources inside the Mist. After they had left Emil’s old homestead, Emil had disappeared. Marcie suggested he needed a few moments to be alone. Everyone understood. Kathy could not imagine how hard it must have been for Emil to be there and hear the pain and the hope still in his mother's voice all these years later.

  When ten o'clock had rolled around, John had said he was tired and was going to bed. Their motel room was small so Kathy had elected to go for a walk. John told her to be careful even though it looked like a nice part of town. She promised to be careful and would send Marcie if there was a need. Marcie reminded Kathy that she could call for John herself, now that they were part of the Mist's collective entities. Kathy had laughed and told Marcie she just didn't get it. Here Kathy was trying to help her get into John's bed. They had laughed together at Kathy's joke and downplaying of her walk at John's expense.

  As Kathy strolled idly down a walkway along an empty stretch of pathway beside the river, she was mesmerized by the slow, twinkling flow of the wide body of water. Kathy was used to the ocean and its relentless pounding against the shore. Many nights had she lain awake and listened as the waves lulled her to sleep with their endless melody and rhythm. Now, she was fully drawn to the quiet meandering pace of the river. The ocean was like a super megalopolis of a company to her. The river was more like a small company struggling to keep up and not be devoured by the ocean influence. Where the ocean beat to the rhythm of its tides and the call of the moon, the river played its own music, hauntingly similar to each individual person on planet earth. Part of the whole but a separate part that had to survive for itself first and foremost.

  The ocean had so many tributaries, like the tax base of a country. Whereas the river had only its several tributaries, which themselves were at the mercies of the storms and rains across the world. Many parts contributing and then being represented in that contribution. Less like a country and more like a family or extended family at the least.

  “Like the Mist.” Emil intruded on her thoughts.

  “The Mist?” Kathy asked. “How so?”

  “All the planes of existence would be like the ocean. Filled and always getting new contributions to keep it filled. The Mist is more like a small version with a purpose of moving towards the whole all the time. Like a river flowing to the sea, the Mist is a plane of existence pointing to the Creator of Life and all He has planned for his Creation. The fullness of the Creation being the innumerable planes of existence on a spiritual level are more like the endless movement of the ocean. Unchangeable and impossible to really understand fully. Too much for a finite mind to comprehend.”

  “Wow!” Kathy declared. “Never thought about it like that.”

  “Neither did I until I came inside the Mist,” Emil admitted.

  “Have you ever been here before?” Kathy asked Emil referring to the river walk.

  There was a long pause.

  “I have been here several times,” Emil answered. “I used to like to bring my girlfriends here and walk in the moonlight. It was as close to romantic as I could find around here. Every other place was noisy or filled with couples getting it on in their cars.”

  “Wow! A philosopher and a romantic.” Kathy kidded him.

  “Well, you know. Even us ghosts have to keep our image up.” Emil joked.

  “Are you okay?” Kathy asked the question that she
had been thinking about all evening at dinner.

  “I think so,” Emil chuckled. “Truth is, I felt sad that my parents were still so broken up about me being dead. I guess I just never thought of myself as someone people would remember. You know. I think of others that way, but not myself. It kind of hit me hard to realize that people were remembering me after I was gone. Gave me a lump in my throat. Never expected that. I just thought I was gone. You know. Too bad and all, but nothing to shake up the world about.”

  “You never thought that you would be missed?” Kathy was intrigued by Emil's attitude toward others remembering him.

  “Just assumed they thought about me like I did. No big deal. I had not done anything in life yet so, there was no reason to remember me or be sorry that I was not there to do that great thing I was supposed to do. You know? I had not been alive long enough to make a place yet, so what was there to remember?”

  “Relationship,” Kathy reminded him. “Your parents miss the fact that your were there and now you are not. They lament the loss like a piece of themselves is missing because in your short time with them that was what you had become, part of them. The part that would go on and do greater things than they ever did. Then, when you died, they had to acknowledge that part was gone forever. That's what they miss. The you that you were, lighting up their lives with your presence as well as the you that you would have become in the near future, making them proud.”

  “I just never thought of myself as memorable, I guess.” Emil stated flatly. “It surprised me to see that my mom was still hurting after four years. Dad was being strong about it, like I would have expected, but I could sense the hurt in him, too. That's what bothered me. I could sense their hurt and knew that it was me that caused it and there was nothing I could do about it.”

  Kathy could hear a little choke in Emil's voice as he spoke. Seeing his parents and realizing how broken up they were about his death hurt. He had no way of fixing what his death had caused. He was not responsible for dying. It was an accident. It happens. The pain Emil felt now, was not a sadness as much as a joy at being remembered. He had not thought being remembered mattered all that much when he thought he was not worth remembering. Now that he knew he was remembered, he assigned a lot more importance to it, as well as value.

  “Well, that's why we're here.” Kathy announced. “We're going to make sure you are remembered and that the one responsible for causing this pain in your parent's life gets some measure of justice.”

  “Seems like a far more worthy cause now,” Emil laughed. “Before I guess I just wanted someone to be remembering me enough to find out what happened. Now, I want to see that my folks get answers for the questions that haunt their private thoughts.”

  “Can you read their thoughts?”

  “No. wish I could sometimes. But then again. Maybe I don't.”

  “Well, where should we start?” Kathy changed the subject a little. “Where do we look first to find this hit and run driver?”

  “Well, walking along this river is not going to get us there.” Emil laughed. “This is where I took my honeys. I rode my bike out on the other side of town. Over by the warehouse district. Not much there and it was usually deserted, so I had the road to myself.”

  “Except that one night.” Kathy reminded him.

  “Except that one night. Right.”

  “So, how many honeys did you bring here?” Kathy pressed for details on Emil's previous love life when he was alive.

  “A gentleman does not kiss and tell,” he maintained.

  “Good answer, Casanova.” Kathy laughed.

  “Besides, It's not who came before you or how many somebodies came before you. It's about the quality of the time you get to spend when it's your turn.” Emil laughed at his explanation.

  “Oh, quality time, huh?”

  “Yes,” Emil filled the pathway with Mist and materialized before Kathy in the walkway. She was amazed he would expend that kind of energy here.

  “Oh.” Kathy gave a little start at the speed with which the night sky winked out and the surrounding pathway became filled with Mist.

  “Want to spend some quality time with me, now?” Emil asked.

  Kathy had considered how fragile Emil might be since the meeting with his parents. She had wondered if a little sacrificing of fluids might help him cope. She had not discussed it with John. She knew how he felt about Marcie and her constantly asking for another replay of their previous coupling. Instead she had decided that if Emil felt that he needed to share a little, she would supply the body for him. It was not like it was a terrible experience. Emil was a great lover and so gentle. She would enjoy the physical aspect as much as she wanted to make sure Emil was okay with this difficult business of finding his killer. She would tell John about it later. First, she had to make sure Emil was taken care of. He was going to be necessary to this investigation. They needed him fully on board and not regretting coming along.

  Kathy pulled her shirt over her head and unhooked her bra. She knew they were perfectly safe inside the Mist. The other entities of the Mist would divert anyone entering it until Emil moved it out of the path when they were done. Emil was always naked in the Mist and his birthday suited appearance startled her. She marveled at her own readiness as she stared at his obvious excitement. It was not like cheating on her husband. More like partaking of a risky thing in public after her husband had given her permission. A thrill with all the excitement of a new lover. Emil watched as Kathy slipped her jeans down her legs and stepped out of them. By the time she had pushed her panties down and laid back in the dew wet grass, Emil was already moving to her. She wanted to give herself to him, now. Almost as much as she loved John, she felt a need to share this moment with Emil. Something inside her told her that he needed this intimacy right now. He had been stressed this afternoon beyond what he had expected and she was an outlet for him now.

  There was also something inside her that wanted him for her. A part of her that was connected to him because he had been her first from the Mist. Like John had been her first in the human plane. The connection was strong and she enjoyed it. It felt naughty and it felt right. She wondered if anyone else had ever been in her position before. Probably. The Mist was not a new creation. It had existed for a long time.

  Kathy smiled as Emil moved over her. She was John and Emil's girl. John in the human plane. Emil in the Mist. And they were in the Mist right now. She shared herself with Emil.

  He was the seed that mattered, he told himself. Those others had been of a general nature. They were not designed to be anyone. They were shells for the Alliance brothers to inhabit and claim a physical body in the human plane. He knew this instinctively from his inherited memory. That memory would have faded as the twenty four hour period passed. Then he would have been like the others, empty, a human shell for the abiding presence Gol had planned in this plane. But he had saved himself and avoided being killed in the process. Now, as a living entity, he was strong enough to hold his own against the brothers. He had breathed in the air of freedom in the human plane and it began the deal with air that all living creatures in the human plane enjoyed. He was now a fully independent, living creature, himself. Separate from the Alliance and therefore not under their authority. The Alliance could not eliminate him now except by murder. And murderers from the spiritual planes ended up in the Place of Chains at their physical death if they could not fashion a sanctuary to hide in before they were caught. He knew the brothers wanted to live forever in the human plane. That was their downfall. Everything they did was to maintain their ability and eligibility to remain in the human plane. The seed did not care where he lived. As long as he lived.

  He had spent the night gathering energy. All four of the brother's seeds had been required to give him the energy he would have had if he had stayed in the womb of the woman for the full incubation period of three months. Gol's attack on the woman had made a premature exit from that warm place necessary. Gol had killed the woman but ha
d not thought about the fact that the seed would have been more advanced at a younger stage because it was in a weaker host. The older woman's system was not able to fight off his incessant hunger. She had given up more energy than a younger woman in a shorter period of time. Most likely, she would not have lasted the full three months anyway. He did not care about such things. His only care was feeding the hunger inside him. Like him, it was growing.

  Now, he was the only seed left of the Alliance brothers. But the hunger still drove him to develop. He looked like a young child, maybe seven or eight, now. Such was his feeding on the seeds of the brothers. They had provided more energy than he had thought they would but not as much as he needed. He was stronger than the weakened seeds planted in the other women. They did not require as much energy to grow and develop since they had passed the twenty four hour period before insemination had occurred. He, on the other hand, had enjoyed his full strength at insemination and was a full resemblance of the brothers as Gol's offspring born of a human woman. And because the woman was older and weaker, she had not been able to withstand his need for her energy. She had succumbed to his greater strength and he had fed to his delight inside her.

  He appraised his human form in the mirror in Carol Bennings bedroom. He delighted in the fresh, smooth skin of the humans. It was a sensory overload to touch anything and he reveled in sliding around in her blood across the satin sheets of her bed. It had been a fight because her seed was more developed than the others had been. They had been easy kills, torn out and devoured swiftly after the woman was killed with a simple twist of her neck. But the seed in Carol Bennings was stronger than he had expected. It fought back the minute it perceived its host had been killed, at first hiding and then tearing its way out and breathing of the fresh, new air of freedom.

  The fight had made a mess of Carol's body. More so than the others because the seed in her had tried to hide in the body as he searched it out. That searched had required tearing up large portions of her creamy, white skin. The blood was smeared and flung everywhere because of the fight that had ensued when he captured the last of the brother's seeds. The outcome had never been in doubt, but the fight had been wildly energetic to say the least. Carol's body had suffered several more destructive blows and rips as the two seeds had fought out the age old battle of life and death over her. In the end, he had triumphed over the weaker seed and claimed its energy like he had the others.

  A full night's work accomplished, he had showered and dried off in Carol's bathroom. The touch of the water and the wash cloth and the towel were all exquisite sensations to his newly formed flesh. Though he looked seven or eight, his flesh was only minutes old. And the nerve endings in it were firing continuously, sending new data to his brain as each experience was cataloged and remembered.

  But he was still hungry. He could not avoid it. There was only one place he could get the energy he needed now. It would take a hundred humans to fill the void he felt inside himself. Or, it would take exactly five brothers.

  Kathy was still sleeping soundly when John woke. He dressed quietly, not knowing what time she had finally come to bed. He remembered waking at one o'clock and she was not there then. He let her sleep. He knew she was dealing with many issues of her own life as well as taking on the issues that went along with Emil's death. That was the way she was wired. She lived her life through others. Their experiences became hers. He gave her one last look as he silently closed the door behind him.

  Across the parking lot, John had remembered a coffee shop when they had checked in the day before. He headed there and ordered a large, black coffee, dark roast, as soon as the girl behind the counter asked him what he'd like. She smiled demurely and moved to a tall stack of paper cups, retrieving the size ordered. A few seconds later she placed a steaming hot cup with a plastic lid on it before him. He thanked the woman, paid and moved to a table by a window to drink his brew in peace.

  A clock on the wall rang out the hour with nine rings of a weak bell that had seen better days. John looked around for something to read, his favorite pastime as he drank his coffee. A newspaper caught his attention on a table across the room. No one was sitting there so he got up and claimed the paper for his own perusal.

  The headline caught his attention immediately as he sat down. Three women had been brutally murdered in their beds over the night. Neighbors had called police with disturbing complaints of strange noises that caused them to believe something was wrong. Three stories were filed from different parts of the city but captioned under one heading. Though written by different reporters, the stories could have been the same. A young woman in her early twenties was attacked and killed. Their necks were broken. More disturbing than the attacks on sleeping women was the revelation that each of them had been pregnant and that the fetus had been ripped out of their bodies.

  John thought about the stories and the person who must have committed these heinous crimes. That was a person, he believed, who operated from the Dark. Evil for the sake of continuing the life of evil. Someone who lived just to inflict damage in the human plane with no regard for the beauty or the sanctity of life here.

  Funny, he smiled to himself. Not the murders. Those were awful. What was funny was how he now viewed evil. Not like he had been taught in the church. Sin and sinners on a rampage. Though they probably still applied in their own limited way. But now he saw evil as a product of the lives of those living in the Dark. Darkness had a plan to survive and thrive just as did those of the Light or even like those of the Mist. It was just another plane of existence trying to make its way as best it could.

  He remembered his thoughts of the darkness he had seen coming on the horizon. He wondered if this news headline represented what he had seen. Maybe. He was still new to this spiritual plane thing. He had no trouble believing it existed but he was so new to understanding it, he double thought every sensation and experience until he had no idea what it really meant.

  Considering his predilection to over examining everything, John had no clear answer to his question of whether this front page darkness he was reading about had anything to do with the darkness he had seen in his mind. He thought about calling on Marcie and asking her to help him consider it but decided to wait. Maybe later. He turned to the sports page of the paper and sipped his coffee as he read about the latest football dramas.