Return to Darkness

by Laimo, Michael

  Behind us, the Isolate there continues pounding on the glass. It stops for a moment…and then all of a sudden it has a block of wood in its hand, an errant piece of trash left in the flatbed for God knows how long. It begins smashing it against the rear windshield.

  All this time I’ve managed to keep on driving along the wintry road. I’ve passed no cars thank goodness, as I’ve pretty much been hogging the entire road. Hard not to when you’re driving a beat-up pickup on a snow-covered road with a band of Isolates willing to kill themselves in order to stop you.

  The front windshield dips into the cab a bit more as the Isolate stuck to it struggles to free itself. Incredibly, I continue to pick up speed, unwilling to let the motherfuckers slow me down. The little man in my head seems to agree with me, as he keeps quiet in this moment of do-or-die.

  “Hold on, Jess…” I utter, not referring to her being able to stay seated, but to remind her that her sanity is a precious thing, and that it’s going to be needed in order for us to make it out of here alive. I do my damnedness to peer around the Isolate stuck to the windshield, through the webbed glass and the tendrils of blood flowing and freezing across my field of vision.

  I don’t see the next Isolate coming. With a jarring thump and crash, its body slams right into the injured one plastered to the windshield, causing the glass to finally cave in. Jessica screams for her life and it literally sets me into shock hearing her fear like that. The truck skids as I instinctually slam on the brakes. One of the Isolates—the one I didn’t see coming at us—sails forward off the hood of the truck and under the tires. There’s a muffled crunch as the truck rolls over it. The windshield, still in one piece, falls down on top of the dashboard and folds over like a huge piece of soft cheese. The one Isolate that had been stuck to it falls into the front seat, right between us.

  Fearing more of them hurling themselves onto the hood of the truck (and now, consequently, into the truck), I give the truck more gas and resume speeding down Harlan Road. The bloody Isolate lumbers back against the seat. Still screaming, Jessica kicks at it and pushes it toward me. With one hand, I grip it around the neck, receiving no contest as I squeeze it and slam its head against the radio, shattering the old, yellow plastic.

  The thing doesn’t even whimper.

  “It’s dead, Daddy...”

  I turn its filthy face toward me. Indeed, its eyes are closed and—

  From of the corner of my eye, I see them, eight or ten of them, in the road. They’re not priming to leap on the car like their brothers did (it occurs to me now that the three Isolates had not tried to stop me, but had instead provided a distraction for these Isolates organizing a real means to stop me.

  And here they were. Right in the middle of the road with the dead deer I brought to Shea’s house.

  Too busy with the dead Isolate in the front seat, I hadn’t noticed much more detail than the winding road itself, and the flurries now falling from the sky. I also hadn’t noticed how far I’d driven. The Washburn house—the former Washburn house—loomed to my right. Danny Washburn’s body was gone now from the front lawn. But his blood was still there, a puddle of it right in the middle with a trail of it leading off around the side of the house, into the back yard...and if I had to guess, right into the woods.

  The dead deer was right in the middle of the road, the Isolates surrounding it, clutching its hide, and ready to slide it across the icy pavement should I try to swing around it.

  But there’s no time.

  This has all happened before, the little man in my head reminds me.

  Terror hits me like a sucker punch. I slam on the brakes. The Isolates scatter like fish in a pond. The truck skids forward, right into the deer. A jolt rocks the chassis as it rises up on two tires. The deer explodes on impact, sending a shower of blood and guts all over the road. The truck lunges back down, knocking me and Jessica into the dashboard, into the dead Isolate. The engine makes a loud knocking noise, then stalls. The truck slides to a stop near the side of the road, then tilts off to the left as one of the tires falls away from the axle. The stench of gas immediately invades my nostrils.

  A gray cloud fills my eyes. Every inch of my head pounds, as though assaulted with hammers. I know: there’s only so much shock a body can take, and I’m pretty sure at this point I’ve had my fill. A cold breeze blows in through the broken windshield. It delivers to me an iota of soberness, like a sniff of salts to a boxer about to hit the canvas. I flutter my eyes open, and for the slightest moment feel my daughter hugging me for warmth, until I realize that it’s not her. It’s the cold, dead Isolate sprawled across my lap.

  In agony (and isn’t this how I’ve performed every goddamned feat?), I push the dead thing to the floor of the car. The stench of gas is stronger, seeping in through the shattered window. I peer over to the passenger seat.

  The door is open.

  Jessica is gone.

  No!

  Tears fill my eyes, and I begin to cry. Really cry. The floodgates have finally opened, all my grief and pain and all that I’ve lost in life now a deluge pouring out of me ungoverned. Somewhere in the sky above, something flutters, making a noise like a snicker, as though it knows I’ve finally lost the game and have no choice but to surrender to the Grand Scheme.

  You have to be strong, Michael. It’s not over yet.

  “How can I be strong?” I whisper aloud. “I’m dying…”

  “Daddy?”

  It’s my baby’s voice, seeping into my head like a ghost’s whisper, seemingly coming from every direction. I twist my head to the passenger seat. Still empty.

  “Daddy…” This time the voice is louder. It’s followed by a knocking sound to my left. Through swollen slits, I gaze over and see Jessica standing outside the truck, looking in at me, both hands pounding frantically at the window. Fear coats her face like a tragedy mask. She has a fresh cut on her forehead.

  Like a miraculous gift from God, a rush of adrenaline rises up in me, enabling to reach over and open the door. I fall sideways into my daughter’s waiting arms. Somehow, she’s found the strength within to ease me out of the truck, keeping certain that I don’t collapse. She leans me against the cold surface of the truck.

  “Daddy…please…we need to go back home.”

  I shake my head, both in defiance of her request and to clear the grayness seeping across my field of vision. “We can’t…” I manage to utter. The pain is excruciating, but I’ve grown used to it. Either that, or my dying body and my CRUMBLED mind have shut down my nervous system’s ability to interpret physical distress. A terrible sweat has broken out over me. Chills assail me. I should be concerned that the Isolates are nearby, aiming to pounce us. But I’m not.

  “We can’t stay here, Daddy.”

  Finally I look at my daughter…and again, upon seeing her innocent form here in this distressing, gloom-filled environment, I know I must live long enough to see her to safety.

  With the truck now out of commission, there is only one place we can go. And that’s about a quarter-mile up the road.

  Home.

  Chapter Fifty

  I step away from the truck, wavering, arms held out for balance. My head spins, forcing me to hold my eyes open wide. The woods surrounding me are like blackness in the eyes of an inexperienced pilot, forcing me to challenge in which direction I move.

  “Daddy…” Jessica’s voice is remarkably calm, almost disconcertingly so. She takes me by the hand and pulls me away from the truck, the warmth from her touch setting stability in me as I begin staggering beside her.

  The scene around us is like something out of a slaughterhouse. There’s blood and guts everywhere, painting the snow and patches of dark blacktop like weird, modern art. Just behind the truck is the deer’s carcass, now an unidentifiable mound of steaming viscera. The truck itself has seen its last days. The front end is caved in, the rusted bumper bent in half, dangling like a loose tooth. The hood, sheared from the truck, is now in the woods off the side of the
road, ten feet away. Steam rises from the engine, the final croak of an ancient dragon slaughtered in war.

  Jessica pulls my hand and with the world hemming and hawing around me, I follow her lead around the back of the truck, around the deer’s carcass. Streaks of blood and gasoline coalesce in the snow like the embracing arms of lovers awaiting death’s blow in their final moments.

  A gust of frigid air hits me as I cross the road, awaking my senses just for a moment—long enough for me to realize that my moments now are numbered, that I’ve done everything I can to survive the elements here in Ashborough, and that I’ve once again failed myself and my family.

  Another tug on my arm. “Daddy…c’mon.”

  I stagger blindly forward, guided solely by my six-year-old’s lead.

  Has she turned six yet, Michael? Isn’t her birthday in January? Is it January yet?

  “Fuck…you…” I mutter, wholly uncaring if my daughter hears me. She seems not to, or simply chooses to ignore my mentally and physically mangled state, pulling me along the side of Harlan Road, toward my home.

  To my right, in the thin patches of woodland that will eventually clear and give way to the side yard to my home…

  …my home! Ha hah hah hah hah!

  …I hear them out there, rustling amid the brambles and icy thickets, sniggering amongst one another, watching us closely with their evil eyes. And I wonder: will they finally let me die, just as they did with the previous doctor, Neil Farris? Or will they find a way to let me live, force me to resume my role as their savior, to heal their sickly and mend their shattered bones?

  Have they found another doctor to take my place?

  If so…then what becomes of Jessica? Christine has become one with them now. A ‘replacement’ for Old Lady Zellis, their ancient spiritual leader who for many years called the shots from her place in that old beaten-down house. It stands to reason now (what little reason I have left in my brain) that the witch’s efforts to secretly nurture Christine in her months of pregnancy served a greater purpose other than what I’d come to assume as a ‘normal’ occurrence here in Ashborough. No…the witch knew her demise was in order and along with the great evil in the woods delivered into Christine the supernatural means to assume the throne here in Ashborough as the ‘queen Isolate.”

  Your mind is running amok, Michael.

  “Can you blame me?” The words seep from my mouth as unintelligible mumbles, but it’s only me and the little man in my head who has to comprehend them.

  No…not at all.

  I lose balance, slip on a patch of ice, and fall down on one knee. I hear Jessica yelp and when I look up, her blurred form oozes back into focus. Her face is heavenly amid the gloom of the environment—my sole means to stay alive. In the indistinct background a car passes slowly, tires eating through the snowy surface like a saw through wood. Somehow the muddy tire tracks remind me that below my coat and the layers of clothing is a monstrous wound in my gut with a life of its own, a monster in its own right proving to be the death of me, and not just the perimeter of flesh surrounding it. As the car fades away in the distance—why isn’t it stopping to help us?—I feel Jessica pulling my arm with all her little might.

  “Daddy, please, home’s only a few more feet away.”

  More rustling in the woods to my right.

  Somehow I find the might in me, the courage, to not just drop dead right there at the side of the road. To let my daughter fend for herself against those motherfuckers in the woods. With my hands on my knee and a surge of agony like a stab from a hunter’s knife, I push my body up to my feet, screaming so loudly that all of Ashborough must’ve heard me, so long that the trail of vapor unfurling from my mouth could be followed all the way to the head of my driveway.

  Jessica pulls me, tentative concern painted on her innocent face: cheeks rosy red floating on a bed of unblemished white; eyes crystal blue, ringed with gentle black circles, a heavenly comparison to the hellish golden glow they once displayed all those days ago.

  How long has it been Michael, since you saw her plop down onto the bloody bed and cuddle up against Christine and her half-breed brother?

  “I don’t know,” I mutter aloud.

  It was only a week ago. Not long by any means. What makes you think that she’s still not one of them?

  “She’s not,” I whisper, looking down at Jessica, blonde curls blowing in the wind as she leads me by the hand like a fearless princess in some dark fairy tale, offering me protection against the evil that threatens my own dreadful demise.

  We turn the bend on Harlan Road, and my house comes into view, first the porch, then the garage out back, and then as we pick up the pace only slightly, the driveway, appearing long enough at this moment to discourage me from my chances to make it back inside.

  And then what, Michael? What will you do when you get inside the house? Drop down on the couch, close your eyes and pray that death doesn’t take you in your sleep?

  “I’ll give myself more medicine…” I manage to slur, just as I step foot into the driveway. It’s only now that I see the car parked a hundred feet ahead, alongside the walkway leading to my house. It’s a sedan, blue, covered with a thin layer of salt and ice. The first thing that comes to my DAMN CRUMBLED mind—as crazy and inane as it sounds—is that the Isolates have had enough with me and have decided to let me go, even going so far as offering me a car to get out of here. But that theory is quickly washed away as the front door to my house opens and a man steps out onto the porch.

  All I can see through the blur of my eyes is his form, thus making me realize how run-down and riddled with infection and fatigue I have become—so much so that my eyesight is beginning to fail me. The man descends the porch steps then begins a slow run across the lawn toward us.

  I try to hold back, nutty thoughts of turning around and running away entering my mind, but Jessica pulls me across the lawn toward him, my lopsided momentum taking me down into the snow-covered lawn.

  I hear myself breathing, feel the cold earth seeping into my body, joining the chills buried deep inside.

  Jessica lets go of my hand, the little warmth she offered gone with the wind whipping into my face.

  The footsteps approach me, arms grab me, roll me over.

  “Michael…” comes a voice.

  A familiar voice.

  I open my eyes, and despite the waves of dizziness and tears obstructing my eyesight, I can see.

  It’s Lou Scully.

  I should be happy. I should feel saved. After all, there’s a doctor, a good friend, here to save me.

  But I’m not.

  I can’t help but notice the bandage on his forehead.

  Right where I smashed the bottle over his head.

  In my dream.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Michael, dear God, what’s happened to you?”

  And all I can think about is Jessica, and what he might do to her. “Jess…” I manage to whisper, but nothing more.

  “I’m here, Daddy. Dr Scully is here. He can help you.”

  I want to trust him, I want to allow him to take me back into my house and mend my wounds. But I don’t trust him.

  Is this the Lou Scully from your dreams, Michael? Or is it the Lou you know and love? The one who spoke to you from his phone in Manhattan?

  “I…don’t…know…”

  Suddenly I’m being hoisted into the air and find despite my urges to wish Lou away, see no choice but to be shouldered back into the warmth of my home.

  Once inside, I hear Lou say, “Where’s his office, Jessica?”

  Jessica answers, “This way.” Her little feet patter away, not unlike they had when we lived in Manhattan and I would hear her get out of her bed and pad down the hall into our bedroom, where she would climb into my bed—our bed—and nuzzle between me and Christine. Arms around Lou’s neck, he leads me through the kitchen (I think) and down the hallway (I think) and into the waiting room where nary a patient has waited in ages. I try to ke
ep my eyes closed as Lou leads me, burdens my weight, but that just makes the world spin faster and suddenly I’m dry heaving and the world is going black because I’m dehydrated and my eyes are rolling up into my skull.

  Lou places me down on the examining table and I know this because the white paper makes a crinkling noise beneath my body. I heave some more and this time I taste something bitter in my mouth. Bile. Perhaps the remnants of the alcohol I drank or the morphine I took.

  Lou begins to undress me, pulling away my coat and gasping aloud at what he finds underneath.

  My eyes roll forward and are somehow able to focus in on Lou’s face, and the bandage on his forehead. In my head, I hear Lou utter, Do what Phillip once did to you. But in reality, what comes from his mouth is, “My God, Michael, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  My head tilts sideways, more so of its own accord than purposeful, and my eyes find Jessica standing beside me. “Baby…” I utter. She takes my hand. The warmth she brings seems to bring a sliver of lucidity into me, enough at least for me to convey my spiraling thoughts.

  There’s a sudden flurry of activity in the room as Lou brushes Jessica aside and begins rifling through the drawers in the stainless steel cabinetry. The water runs in the sink, and a moment later Lou is hovering over me, swabbing my wound with warm water. I close my eyes, and I must’ve blacked out for a few minutes, because next thing I know I’m jolted awake with a sharp poke in my thigh.

  I open my eyes and see that I’m naked now. Lou has just administered an injection into me and is about to inoculate me again. The pain is obvious, but I find that I’m paralyzed, and unable to react. I tell my waning conscience that I’m in good hands now, and that I should come out of this alive now that I’m in the hands of my friend, Dr. Lou Scully. But the little man inside my head, that persistent little prick, shouts out from some distant mountaintop in my head: He put you here in the first place, Michael. He’s in on it, and you know it. Do you think it coincidental that he shows up on your doorstep the very moment you need him the most? He’s here for a reason, Michael, and it’s not to help you.