“I wasn’t there more than two or three minutes when some guy barged in. I’d never seen him before. He smelled funny… like he was hiding the fact that he didn’t shower beneath a bottle of cheap aftershave. I knew right away something was off… you know what I mean?”
His friends nodded.
“All I wanted was to get out of there as fast as possible, but he wouldn’t let me leave.” Danny shook his head and stared at the ground between his feet. “If you don’t see where this is going, forget I even mentioned it, because I’m not going into detail and I’m never talking about it again. Ever.”
“That sick fuck,” Brent sighed.
“He threatened to kill my parents, and I believed him. I was only twelve; I didn’t know any better.”
The boys wanted to comfort their friend, but they saw in his eyes he wasn’t looking for comfort, only closure, a necessary purge to get it out of the way and move on. They respected his choice and waited silently for him to continue.
“It was after that when the bad dreams started. I woke up one morning, covered in sweat, thinking I’d chopped my parents into pieces with an ax. I could smell the blood… could feel it drying on my skin. I’d never felt so relieved to find my mother in the kitchen doing a crossword puzzle. I thought I was going crazy, but it was a just a dream. I had to keep telling myself it wasn’t real, that I’d never do something like that. The next few nights, nothing happened, but when the nightmares returned, they were even worse.
“This time I’d traded my ax for a shotgun, walking around the junior high and randomly killing people: friends, enemies, teachers. I gunned them down without a second thought until bodies piled on the floor like firewood… and I enjoyed it. The smell of gunpowder, the screams. When I woke up, I was laughing. Laughing!
“It went on like that for days at a time, all Freddy Kreuger and Arnold Schwarzenneger, blood and guts and death. Severed heads, bloody limbs, car accidents where people were scattered across the road like bloody dolls, children burning alive. I’d wake up screaming or crying as my parents would turn on the light, eyes still closed, trying to calm me down.
“I couldn’t tell them what was going on. If I told them the truth, they’d have put me in the loony bin. So I lied. I hid what was happening and told them what they wanted to hear. I hid it from you guys, too. I never wanted you to find out. I thought you’d look at me differently, not want to be my friends anymore.”
Brent rested his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “You know we’re not going anywhere. We’ll always have your back.”
“Yeah, it’s going to take more than that to get rid of us,” Eric added. “I mean shit, it’s almost normal compared to my family.”
Danny loved them for what they were doing. Part of their dynamic was knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to lighten the mood during tense situations. It was part of what made them so good together… what kept their bond so strong. Danny hoped everyone had friends like Brent and Eric, and if not, they were really missing out.
Danny continued.
“It went on all summer until I was so worn down I could barely function. I was right at my breaking point when the dreams stopped. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “I slept sixteen hours a day for a straight week. I’d never realized how good it felt to get a full night’s sleep. I disappeared for days that summer, made excuses to be alone, hid what had happened and tried to get back to living a normal life again. I needed to recover.”
Eric sat up, smiling. “That’s a good thing. Put that shit behind you.”
“I thought so too, but it didn’t last long. When the dreams came back, it was like nothing had changed. My parents were in my room every night. Some nights I pissed my bed, too afraid to get up and use the bathroom. Other nights I didn’t sleep at all. I stayed up, drinking coffee, hoping it would keep me awake, like Heather in A Nightmare On Elm Street. Except this nightmare wasn’t a movie, it was real life.
“Once school started, my grades suffered because I couldn’t stay awake. I was too tired to study or pay attention to what was going on around me. It got so bad that my mind would sometimes shut down. I’d just pass out. Once, I fell down the stairs during a blackout and busted my arm.”
“I remember that,” Brent said. “You came to school with that brace on your wrist and told everyone you sprained it playing flag football. In the time I’ve known you, not once did I see you play flag football. It was a little weird, but I just assumed you did something stupid and didn’t want me to know about it.”
“Can you blame me? I was like the fat kid hiding his late-night cookie binges.”
“Oh, well I can definitely relate to that,” Brent chuckled.
A group of rowdy kids rode their bikes through the grove, shouting and cursing at one another. Danny watched and waited until they were well out of earshot to continue.
“At that point, my parents were losing their patience. They knew I was lying to them and they had the best intentions, but every discussion involved therapy, and there was no way I’d agree to that. Somehow that made it even worse, knowing my parents really thought I was crazy. I think my mom was seriously worried, but my dad seemed more aggravated than anything. Not only was I losing sleep, but so were they. My dad had to get up early for work, not ‘deal with a new baby in the house,’ which was how he put it.
“Finally they sent me to a doctor in Allentown who specialized in sleep disorders, but I did my best to be uncooperative. I didn’t want to be there. They hooked me up to all kinds of gadgets, gave me pills, suggested changes in diet, but still I came home and had the same problem. On top of that, my parents had started fighting all the time, mostly about money. Dad’s insurance didn’t cover anything, and the bills were starting to pile up. I heard my father mention divorce once and I blamed myself for ruining their marriage. Who would I live with? Would they ever look at me and not blame me for tearing the family apart?
“When the nightmares stopped again, my mother was elated, thinking this so-called doctor had cured me of whatever was going on. My parents started talking again, and I started sleeping again. I’d survived round two.”
“There’s more?” Brent asked.
“Round three was worse by far. I didn’t need to be asleep to see shit anymore… I saw it while I was awake.”
Brent shook his head. He felt terrible for believing he knew Danny so well, but yet missed all the signs of what he’d been going through. There’d been red flags waving everywhere, and he ignored every single one.
“That’s when I got my first look at The Gray.”
Eric’s voice cracked. “Your first look at what?”
“I called it The Gray.”
“You’re going to have to explain it better than that,” Brent said.
“I know, I’m trying to figure out how.”
Eric played with the hem of his shorts, afraid to push Danny if he wasn’t ready.
“I was at the grocery store with my mom, arguing over buying me a bag of Skittles when everything changed. Everyone had disappeared. The store was abandoned, like it had been empty for years. The shelves were bare and covered with a thick layer of gray dust, like the pictures on TV when that volcano erupted out west. It didn’t last long, maybe a few seconds before reality snapped into place. Mom was yelling at me to pay attention to where I was walking.”
“That’s nuts!” Eric exclaimed. Brent nodded his agreement.
“It happened again at the park by Eric’s house. You guys weren’t around, so I stopped at the Miner’s Festival to listen to the band and grab some grub. Everything was fine, and then someone flipped a switch. I was back in The Gray. Fog had rolled in making it hard to see anything beyond the fence. All the rides were rusted piles of garbage. The concession stand had collapsed, the grass and trees were dead and bare, the basketball courts were torn apart. All the streetlights were off and the houses were dark and boarded up. There was no sound until something screamed somewhere in the fog. Not human…
really close to what we heard the other day on Market Street.
“Then I was back, just like before. The band was playing a Beatles tune, the merry-go-round was full of screaming kids, it was getting dark and the first stars had come out. I’d dropped my French fries on my shirt and some little girl was pointing and laughing at me. When I got home, my father took one look at the dried ketchup on my clothes and told me to wash up and go to bed, which was fine with me. I’d had enough craziness for one day.
“Except as soon as I closed my eyes, I was dreaming again. This time I was in the school cafeteria. I was alone. The only lights were those creepy red emergency lights that come on when the power goes out. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and Mr. Roberts walked in holding a notebook. He smiled at me; his teeth were broken down to the gum-line, and he smelled like maybe he’d shit himself. His eyes glowed bright silver, like ball bearings. When I looked down at the notebook, there was only one sentence written there in red crayon. ‘We’ll be seeing you soon.’”
“What the hell does that mean?” Brent shouted. “It’s like a movie without an ending.”
“Not exactly.”
Eric groaned.
“I saw The Gray the other night, after the party. It’s been a couple years, but I’ve never forgotten what it looked like.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Brent said.
“I shit you not.”
The previous group of kids returned and parked at one of the picnic tables, dropping their bikes and settling in. Storytime was over. Danny stood and walked away without another word. Brent and Eric followed closely behind, walking the well-known path through the woods and up over the silt bank.
Once they’d reached the top, Eric sat and dumped loose coal dirt from his shoes; his socks had turned black. No one said a word since they’d left the grove below. From up here they watched kids tossing a baseball on the Little League Field; an older couple knelt by a fresh grave in the Lutheran cemetery as a car passed, blasting rock music. It was hard to imagine things being so wrong when on the surface everything appeared so normal.
The Rimmel Shoe Factory sat below the ball field like a cancer, slowly rotting, blackened and ugly. The single smokestack pointed into the sky like a crooked, skeletal finger. Eric took one look and shuddered.
“Last time we were there I saw something,” Danny said. “I can’t be sure what it was, but it was watching.”
“We’ll be seeing you soon,” Eric whispered.
“Okay, hold on a minute,” Brent said. “You think all this is connected? Your dreams, your gray-place, whatever the hell you think happened in the school?”
“I’m not saying anything, but if this is happening, it has to be more than a coincidence. When you say it, it sounds like some cheesy movie.”
“Wait,” Eric said. “We went to the factory and the next day your neighbor died. Then we went to the school, and it burned down. Holy shit!”
“Oh, give me a fucking break,” Brent shouted. “Your neighbor was like two-hundred years old and the school was just begging to be burned down for years.”
“Then explain what happened inside. Explain Charlie. Can you do that?”
“Charlie’s dead, that’s what happened.”
“And no one remembers him, huh? I guess that’s normal too.”
“Adults deal with shit differently. They forget, they move on.”
“How can you not believe something’s really wrong?”
Brent stood and slapped his hands on his knees. “This is crazy, all this shit about monsters and other dimensions. It’s not real, guys. That’s what’s wrong… that either of you believe what you’re saying.”
Danny stood, coming face to face with his best friend. “You can call it whatever you want, but it was in my house last night. In my fucking bathroom. I wasn’t dreaming and I’m not crazy. I finally realize that.”
Before Brent could reply, Danny swayed unsteadily, closed his eyes, and fell to the ground. They gathered around him, fanning him and calling his name, but nothing worked.
Danny’s eyelids twitched, and he began muttering nonsensically. They listened closely but couldn’t make out anything he said.
He wasn’t speaking any language they recognized.
***
It was dark and cool in Danny’s living room. His mother had placed a wet washrag across his forehead. His parents sat on the couch beside him, offering him water as his eyes fluttered open.
What’s all this?
“Jesus Christ, Danny, are you okay?” his father asked.
“I’m fine dad. What happened?”
“Brent said you passed out and they couldn’t wake you up. He ran here to get me.”
“Brent ran here? I wish I could have seen that.”
“No, you don’t,” Eric said from the chair. “It wasn’t pretty.”
Danny laughed, feeling better as the minutes passed.
“You must’ve been dehydrated,” his father said. “Your mother wanted to take you to the hospital, but I knew you’d be fine. This happens to boys all the time, running around in the heat, never stopping for a drink. It’s just how boys are, right?”
“Sure dad, like I said, I’m fine. Really.”
“Your color is coming back.” David Harper hugged his son. Danny was taken by surprise by the sudden show of affection. He hugged David in return, smelling his cologne and the scent of dryer sheets on his clothes.
“You’re in for the night,” David said. “You need to rest, drink a lot of water, relax. You’re lucky you didn’t smack your head on a rock or this could’ve been much worse. If your friends weren’t with you, you could have died on the mountain and we’d never know where the hell you were.”
“Come on dad, I said I’m okay.”
“Listen to your father,” his mom said. “You scared us half to death. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, but for now Brent and Eric are going home and you’re going to lie down.”
Danny didn’t have the energy to argue.
Eric and Brent said their goodbyes. The Harpers ate dinner that night in front of the television, protectively crowded around Danny as if he’d suddenly grown fragile. It was the closest Danny felt to them in years, it was just a shame it took a scare to bring them together.
Danny wanted nothing more than a good night’s rest so he could approach all this craziness with a clear head. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. The sky darkened and the distant rumble of thunder soon became a steady wall of sound, the light drizzle turning into a heavy downpour.
Danny slept dreamlessly throughout the night as Elmview paid for its ignorance.
***
Two blocks away in the deserted Rimmel factory, wind blew fiercely down empty halls, crackling with electricity and smelling of humid sewers. In the office, large chunks of plaster broke free from the walls and crumbled to the floor in billowing clouds; doors slammed with enough force to splinter them into jagged pieces; sparks showered down from long-dead light fixtures; thick, black ichor bubbled up between cracks in the floorboards.
Outside, the storm had reached a fever pitch, whipping the trees into a frenzy and plucking shingles from the roof like grapes on a vine. A chorus of angry voices - hundreds, thousands - rose above the din; souls trapped in their own inescapable darkness, crying out to be saved. One voice raged above the others, bellowing until the windows shattered from the force.
The metal garage door twisted and crumpled, tearing off its tracks and landing in the parking lot thirty feet away. A dark mist poured into the storm as the screaming voices quieted. The locked gates were torn apart, ripped from their hinges, as the cloud passed effortlessly across the boundary.
The monster was loose.
***
Judith Monahan placed her Bible on the nightstand and glanced at the small alarm clock as the minute hand clicked past midnight.
Too late for an old lady, she thought.
She removed her thick bifocals, turned off the light, and
snuggled beneath the covers as rain beat on the windows. Wind whistled loudly around the eves of the house as lightning flickered through her eyelids.
No sooner had she closed her eyes when she was startled by a loud crash from above. The ceiling broke apart as bricks punched through the plaster, falling around her in an endless cascade. A portion of the chimney followed, narrowly missing the bed and turning the dresser into a splintered heap of wood. Some of the bricks smoked from the lightning strike that had sent it crashing through the roof and into the bedroom. Sparks rained down and quickly ignited the carpet.
Judith struggled out of bed and stumbled across the floor, tripping on debris and falling on her side, breaking her hip with a loud pop. She reached up to grab her Bible from the nightstand and pulled her hand away with a hiss. Her Bible had been set ablaze. She offered her prayers to the empty room until the smoke grew too thick to speak. The fire spread quickly, carrying her away on a wave of searing pain. Her screams went unheard as she roasted alive on the bedroom floor.
The fire alarm never rang.
The house burned furiously throughout the night until only a smoking, charred pile remained.
***
The power had been out for over an hour when Sonny woke from a deep sleep. Somewhere behind the house, a dog barked incessantly. He shrugged it off in favor of a cold beer from the fridge. The problem was, the beer was no longer cold, and Sonny hated nothing more than drinking it warm.
He grabbed a flashlight from under the kitchen sink and walked barefoot into the yard. The yapping dog was much clearer now. It grated on his nerves. He cursed the mutt and continued down the path to his generator shed. He would have a cold beer goddammit, and a little wind and rain wouldn’t change his mind.
When he reached the halfway point, he stopped, blinked, and took a single step back. His mother stood at the foot of the path, her nightgown pasted to her body, her dripping hair hanging in her face. She swayed back and forth in the wind.
“Mom?”
She charged up the walkway with her hands held out toward him.
The Darkening (A Coming of Age Horror Novel) (The Great Rift Book 1) Page 9
