The joys of marriage.
He walked into the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee and jamming a few slices of bread in the toaster. No point trying to go back to sleep, he had to be up at five, anyway.
Walking through the dim living room, he paused, peering into the shadows, sure he’d seen something flitting through the air. He flicked on the overhead light and walked ahead slowly, convinced something was watching him.
“Just your nerves,” he said. The dream had really shaken him.
Creeping to the second floor, David opened Danny’s bedroom door and looked in on his son. He slept peacefully. Satisfied, David went back downstairs, poured a cup of coffee, and ate several pieces of dry toast. His wife came down at four-thirty and grabbed a mug, grimacing as she sipped the bitter brew.
“This is awful. How long have you been down here?”
“Not long,” he said. “Maybe an hour or so. I can make a new pot.”
“Yes, please, this tastes like furniture polish.” David made a fresh pot and a few more pieces of toast. “Why are you up so early?”
“I don’t know, couldn’t sleep. Had a hell of a dream.”
“Sounds ominous.”
David laughed and put his mug in the sink. “Not at all, just a dream.”
“Some say that dreams are often based on reality.”
“Well if that’s the case you’d better start packing.”
Chapter 5
Eric sat in the living room watching television while his mother snored loudly on the couch. She’d been drinking heavily all night, talking to herself, shouting obscenities at her dead husband. She’d sleep most of the day away, getting up just in time to hit the liquor store and start all over again.
An hour later, clean and showered, Eric quietly latched the door behind him and walked to Brent’s house, kicking an aluminum can up the sidewalk. When Eric rounded the corner he saw Brent on his porch, tying his sneakers and humming to himself discordantly. Brent stopped when he saw his friend and stood to greet him.
“I heard you coming a block away,” he said.
“I like to make an entrance.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“Wanna do something today?”
“Yeah. I’m just waiting for Danny, see what he has to say. It’s so boring around here.”
Not lately, Eric thought.
“You want a soda or something?”
Eric nodded and sat on the steps while Brent ran inside to get refreshments. The McCallisters had a soft spot for the poor boy. Such a terrible thing that happened to that family, Brent’s mother would say. Little did she know the death of the family patriarch was only the beginning of their problems.
Once Brent returned, they sat side-by-side on the front porch, sipping their cold beverages. Charlie Maier rounded the corner, balancing precariously on his crutches. He hopped around like an injured bird, dragging his cast along the ground.
A white Econoline van roared around the corner, engine racing and tires squealing as it slid across the asphalt. The driver leaned on the horn as the vehicle crossed the railroad tracks, seeing Charlie in just enough time to correct his course. Startled, Charlie jumped back, dropping one of his crutches and nearly falling into the dirt. He bent awkwardly, retrieved his crutch and continued toward Brent’s house.
Brent stood and shook his head. “Are you trying to break your other leg?”
“That guy was driving like an asshole, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Apart from looking ridiculous, it seems you can get around okay,” Eric said.
“It’s not so bad. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but I won’t be running in any marathons anytime soon. I won’t be running at all.”
Brent looked away, knowing what Charlie was hinting at. “It was just our imagination. You know that right?”
“Something was wrong in there. It felt wrong.”
Brent shrugged and turned around. “You want a soda?”
“Hell yes, I want a soda.”
As Brent went to fetch another drink, Charlie sat next to Eric and wiped his sweaty forehead on his shirt.
“So what’s going on?” Charlie asked.
“Right now we’re waiting for Danny.”
Brent returned with another soft drink and a handful of pretzel sticks.
“What’re you dicks talking about?” Brent asked.
“Banging your mom,” Eric said.
“Get in line, buddy.”
“You guys are messed up,” Charlie said.
“Messed up like Brent’s face,” Eric said.
“No, messed up like your sister’s flabby boobs.”
“You should see her ass.”
“Oh my god, that’s so gross,” Brent shouted.
Charlie shook his head and laughed with them, drinking his soda while they spit pretzel crumbs all over themselves. They didn’t notice Danny approach the house.
“What the hell’s so funny?” he asked.
They laughed harder. Eric spilled a little of his soda on his shoe.
“Jacky’s ass and tits apparently,” Charlie said. He ate his pretzel stick, finished his soda, burped, and shook his head. Danny patted him on the arm and smiled.
I have some weird friends, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
***
It was one of those days when nothing kept their attention for long. There was something about having no structure that was both exciting and boring. There was only so much to do before it became redundant.
They stopped at the Corner Pocket and played a few games of pool, laughing at Charlie as he tried to maintain his balance without his crutches. They walked by the basketball court and watched kids play a pick-up game, realizing they could never join with an injured member of their group. They wound up at Jack’s Video, looking at movies they had no intention of renting.
A little after four o’clock they decided to return to Brent’s house, maybe relax on the front porch, bullshit, anything that required as little energy as possible. It was almost ninety degrees.
They stepped outside, leaving the air-conditioned comfort of the video store behind. Eric covered his eyes with his forearm to block out the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. He bumped into Danny who’d stopped at the curb, waiting for the light to turn.
Charlie didn’t stop. He raced passed them in a world of his own. Brent chuckled. Charlie looked ridiculous as he hobbled across the intersection.
“What the hell are you doing?” Danny said. He laughed, sure that Charlie was doing it to prove he could still maneuver on his busted leg.
Brent cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “You look like an old man! Stop it before someone sees you!”
Charlie never turned, never laughed, only looked straight ahead. When he dropped his crutches and continued on foot, the laughter stopped and Danny became concerned.
“Okay, you proved your point, get out of the road.”
Charlie stopped and turned around. His face was slack, his eyes wide and unseeing, his lips trembling. His friends saw the white van and heard its engine racing before they had time to react. In a few seconds, it was on him.
It tore through the intersection at forty miles an hour, hitting Charlie dead on and pinning him to the grill like a fly on the windshield. They screamed their warning too late, called his name, and ran into the street, abandoning their own safety. Brent tripped over Charlie’s shoe sitting in the middle of the road. It’d been knocked clear off his foot.
The van swerved toward the curb and the line of parked cars without ever slowing down. It rear-ended an old Valiant in a violent collision that crushed Charlie in between. Blood sprayed from his mouth like a geyser and poured down his shirt in a torrent. His eyes bulged, staring into the bright summer sky as his hands clenched and unclenched, reaching out for help.
The Econoline’s engine roared again as the vehicle lurched backward. The upper part of Charlie’s crushed body was sprawled across
the car’s crumpled rear end. Blood dribbled from the front of his shorts, ran down his legs, and pooled in the gutter. A second later, his lower body fell to the ground; everything from his waist down had been severed by the violence of the impact. His upper body remained in place. Large red ropes of intestine uncoiled from his torso and formed a scattered pile beneath him.
He’d been cut in two.
Charlie raised his head with an effort, staring at the quickly gathering crowd. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He tried asking for help but he couldn’t make his mouth work. It was getting so dark. His mother was going to be pissed if he wasn’t home in time for dinner.
Charlie shook with a sudden tremor and his upper body slid off the trunk of the car. He fell face first onto the oily street, breaking his nose and knocking out his front teeth. He spit them out like hard candy. Looking up, he saw that his knee was scraped and his shorts were torn. The signatures on his cast were covered in splashes of crimson.
He reached out one trembling hand to grab his leg, confused by the strange angle at which it lie on the hot asphalt. His body stilled as one final wheezing breath whistled between his lips. Charlie would never make it home for dinner again.
The driver-side door of the van burst open, and a man jumped into the street. His eyes rolled in his head as he looked at Charlie’s mangled body. The crowd backed away, giving the man a wide berth as he blubbered incoherently.
“I never saw him,” he screamed. “I swear I never fucking saw him!” He looked at Charlie’s bloody corpse and dropped to his knees, vomiting down the front of his shirt. Tears ran unchecked over his stubbly cheeks. “What happened? Oh my God, what happened?” He vomited again, stood, and stumbled back into the crushed, steaming grill of his van.
The onlookers mumbled quietly to one another, looking at the man with contempt and disgust. Sirens blared in the distance. A light breeze blew down the street, ruffling Charlie’s hair and blowing his t-shirt aside, exposing the jagged, wet tear where the boy had once been joined. The crowd erupted in shouts and cries of revulsion.
Danny was crying too hard to notice.
The driver wandered into the crowd, begging them to explain what’d happened. His injured nose began bleeding profusely, running down over his lips and chin. Every time he shouted, the blood mixed with spittle, spattering those who’d gathered. He grabbed a woman by her shirt, leaving smeared, bloody prints on the white fabric.
“Get away from me you monster,” she screamed before running off into the crowd.
“Please, someone tell me what happened!”
“You killed that poor boy,” someone shouted.
“You’ll go to prison for this,” said another.
The angry mob shouted all at once, pushing the man back into the street. He turned to run, bumping into Danny. They gazed into the face of Charlie's killer, too shaken to utter a word.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Beware the darkness; the darkness holds sway.”
He slapped his hands over his face and wailed, again falling to his knees as if he was no longer capable of staying on his feet. A cloud passed over the sun; the shadows lengthened and crept closer. His screams became tortured shrieks, bouncing off the storefronts, joining together like a chorus of the damned. He scratched at his face, digging deep, bloody furrows in his flesh. He tore out large patches of greasy, black hair and clenched them in his shaking fists.
“GOD FORGIVE ME!” he screamed. “Look what I’ve done for YOU! All for YOU!”
The driver jammed the tips of his fingers into the corners of his eyes and applied pressure until they slipped into the warm holes of his eye sockets. With a quick flick of his wrists, he popped his eyes from his head where they dangled like gory Yo-Yos from thin pink fibers. He grabbed each eyeball in his shaking hands and squeezed them like grapes; Danny heard them pop softly as they turned to lumps of jelly in the man’s fists. He tore away the final remains of his eyes, snapping the retinal veins and optic nerves, and tossing them into the street.
“If I can’t see you, you can’t hurt me,” he moaned. “Go away, go away!” He turned his head toward Danny and his friends, whimpering. His dark, hollow sockets leaked blood and clear fluid; snot dangled from his nostrils in thick, wet ropes. “It’s coming. Everything will be lost.” Orbs of molten silver sparked to life in the red recesses of his empty eye sockets before quickly disappearing.
With a final warbling cry, the man fell into the street. Completely blind, he reached out, dragging his hand through the cooling puddle of blood leaking from Charlie’s midsection. His hand crept up the boy’s chest and stopped, where he grabbed hold of the gold crucifix hanging around Charlie’s neck. He wrapped his hand around the chain and pulled.
“Forgive me,” he said, growing still.
“He’s dead!” someone shouted.
The mob rejoiced, their need for swift justice had been sated.
The ambulance arrived just as a heavy, cold rain fell from the thickening clouds above, washing Charlie’s blood into the gutter. The police arrived, the crowd dispersed, and Charlie was taken away.
Danny found it difficult remembering the precise chain of events, but he’d never forget the glints of silver that had greeted him from the dying man’s skull. He wondered if he was the only one who’d noticed.
***
“Is there anything in the paper about the funeral?” Danny asked his mother. Two days had passed since the accident and he hadn’t left the house, only talked to his friends on the phone, never saying much but being comforted by their voices.
“What’s that, Danny?”
“Charlie’s funeral? Is it in the paper?”
“Charlie? Do I know him?”
Danny sat in the chair, his breath escaping in a loud blast. “My friend Charlie Maier, remember? He was just killed by a madman on Broad Street. Ring any bells?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know him, but I don’t know all your friends, do I? Relax.”
“Relax? Are you out of your fucking mind?” he screamed. His mother stepped back at the ferocity of his words.
“Watch your mouth,” she yelled. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’re not going to take it out on me, young man.”
“Mom, seriously? How could you forget? We were at the police station for hours. Charlie Maier. You made him dinner a dozen times.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel. Don’t make up awful stories like that, it isn’t funny.” She turned and went back to the dishes.
“Mom, look at me!”
She tossed the dishrag into the sink and turned. “What, Danny?”
“One of my best friends was killed two days ago and you don’t even remember?” He grabbed the paper from the table and frantically turned the pages. Surely it was in there somewhere. He went through it several times but found nothing.
Not a story. Not an obituary. Not a blurb. Nothing.
He tore the paper into pieces and threw them to the floor, jumping up and down on the remains.
“Okay, that’s enough! I’m done with your tantrum and your disrespect. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you lately. Go to your room and wait for your father to come home.”
“I’m not staying here with you. You’re crazy!” Danny stood, knocking the kitchen chair to the linoleum with a bang. He stormed past his mother and went outside, slamming the kitchen door with enough force to crack the glass. He was at the end of the yard by the time his mother had begun shouting behind him.
“Don’t you walk away from me! Get back here now!”
Danny opened the rear gate and disappeared.
He wanted to punch something, anything, everything. What the hell was happening? How had his mother forgotten about Charlie?
He’d never cursed at his mother before: not when he was battling insomnia, not when she scrapped his comic book collection, not when he woke her up screaming in the middle of the night. Never. Those things had all happene
d, they all carried weight, but this was somehow different and it scared the hell out of him. She was too young to be suffering from dementia, right? What else could explain her behavior? The longer he walked, the more his anger turned to confusion. It just wasn’t possible.
Danny passed rows of houses, their normalcy suddenly shocking in the aftermath of recent events. A woman tended the small flower garden in front of her house, a man watered his lawn, a little girl played with her Golden Retriever puppy, giggling happily.
“Hi,” she said, waving one dirty hand as he passed.
“Hi,” he replied.
“Where ya going?
“To hang out with my friends I guess.”
“It must be so neat to be old and do whatever you want.”
“Sometimes,” Danny said. “You’ll find out someday.”
“I don’t know,” she laughed. “I don’t think I’ll ever grow up.”
“Of course you will. You’ll go to high school and meet all sorts of new friends and learn to drive.”
“Nah, I’ll be dead by then.”
“What?” Danny stopped on the sidewalk as she tossed a stick to the panting puppy. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Because it’s true,” she laughed. “I’ll be dead and gone just like Charlie.” She smacked her hands together for emphasis and Danny flinched.
“What did you say?”
“Dead, dead, dead,” she sang. “We’re all dead.”
The girl’s mother appeared in the doorway, glaring at Danny apprehensively. “Come on Janie, time to come in.”
“Okay,” she said. She waved again and ran to the door as the puppy followed, wagging its tail playfully. “Nice to meet you, Danny.”
I never told her my name, he thought.
He watched the door close behind her, lingering behind a few seconds before continuing on. He was more confused now than before. How did that little girl know him? How did she know about Charlie? A kid on a skateboard sped past and shouted, “Watch where you’re going asshole!” Danny moved aside and watched as he disappeared around the corner.
The Darkening (A Coming of Age Horror Novel) (The Great Rift Book 1) Page 7
