The Darkening (A Coming of Age Horror Novel) (The Great Rift Book 1)

by Christopher Motz

  She’d made up her mind and blurted out her intentions before thinking of the repercussions.

  “I’m leaving you, Ray.” She stared out the window, avoiding eye contact. The cab remained silent except for the faint whistling of her breath through a clogged nostril. She turned and looked at her husband.

  Ray’s response came in the form of a fist. It connected squarely with her cheek and glanced off her nose, the force enough to slam her head into the passenger window, cracking the glass. Several drops of blood fell from her injured nose and dribbled down the front of her shirt. Her ears rang from the blow.

  Ray shook his hand and screamed at her angrily. “Look what you made me do! I keep a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on the kid’s back, and you don’t fucking appreciate any of it.”

  Jamie gazed at him with a fury she’d never felt before. It overwhelmed her. Ray had no problem running his mouth, but this was the first time he’d hit her. The first and last. Blood leaked over her chin, dripped down her shirt, and into her lap. She clenched her fist so tightly that her fingernails dug into her flesh, leaving bloody crescents in her palm.

  “I could kill you right now,” she said, trembling. “I could tear your fucking heart out.”

  “Knock off your shit, Jamie. Don’t act like you didn’t deserve it. We’ll talk about this later.” He turned his eyes back to the road like nothing had happened.

  “No, we’ll talk about this right now.” She wiped her hand across her face and held it out for Ray to see. “Is this what you’ve become? You hit the mother of your child?”

  Ray’s head was starting to hurt, the kind of pain that only alcohol could cure. He reached next to the seat and grabbed a silver flask, expertly unscrewing the cap and taking a long pull. He sighed in ecstasy, ignoring his wife’s look of shock.

  “You’re just like your father, an abusive drunk. Stop this truck and let me out. We’re done.” She wiped her nose again and winced.

  “We’re done when I say we’re done. Clean yourself up, you look like you just stumbled out of a woman’s shelter.” He took another long pull from the flask and watched her as she cleaned her face with a wad of tissues.

  Jamie saw the red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror and laughed.

  “What the fuck’s so funny?” he asked, oblivious to the police cruiser behind them.

  “You’re going to jail, Ray. That’s what’s so fucking funny.”

  Ray glanced in his mirror and finally saw the lights flashing behind the trailer. Rage consumed him. He swung his right arm at her with a closed fist, hoping to shut her up once and for all, but Jamie saw it coming and quickly ducked out of the way. His hand connected with the rear window of the cab, forming a large spider web of cracks. He gasped in surprise and jerked the wheel, swinging the rig into oncoming traffic.

  The police cruiser dropped back as Jamie laughed even harder. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. “Oh Ray, your very own action movie. I bet that’s making your dead, old prick tingle.”

  Ray was quicker this time. He felt something crunch beneath his hand as he punched her in the eye, knocking her head into the window a second time. Before she could recover, he grabbed a handful of hair and tugged her closer.

  “Are you happy you came along for the ride? You just had to open your fucking mouth, didn’t you? Maybe this time I’ll put your head right through the window.” In his fury, he no longer cared about the road ahead. The truck slowly drifted toward the guardrail.

  “Does that make you feel like a man, Ray? Go ahead and do it. It’s the end of the road for you no matter what.”

  Ray sat motionless, still holding her hair, eyes fixed. The truck slid back into the correct lane, picking up speed. Jamie smiled the smile of the damned.

  She looked out the window just in time to see a group of three boys waving their arms frantically at the passing truck. Jamie thought one of them might’ve been her son, Tyler. She smiled bitterly and knew that she was never going to make it home.

  “Go ahead and kill me you son of a bitch. We’ll both be better off.” But Ray had checked out. His mouth hung open, a runner of drool swinging from his bottom lip. His eyes glowed with an unnatural silver light.

  Jamie opened the glove compartment and pulled out Ray’s .357. He always kept it loaded. Without thinking she aimed it between those glowing orbs and pulled the trigger. Ray’s face exploded in a red mist, his jaw coming unhinged, tongue lolling from the side of his face. He collapsed in his seat just as she turned the gun on herself. “Forgive me.”

  Jamie pulled the trigger as the truck rolled on.

  Ahead, the driver of a Ford pickup looked into his rearview mirror just as the rig bore down on him.

  The sound of the impact was deafening.

  The momentum pushed the line of traffic forward… a wall of steel with vicious intent.

  Those at the intersection could only watch as death approached.

  ***

  Eric turned as soon as he heard the police siren, watching helplessly as the tractor-trailer thundered past. The boys watched the speeding truck, knowing there was nothing anyone could do to stop what was coming. They frantically waved their arms above their head, signaling the danger while realizing their efforts were all in vain.

  “My God,” Danny shouted. “Why aren’t they stopping?”

  Time slowed. The police car squealed to a stop in the middle of the road, tires smoking, lights bouncing off the buildings on either side. Eric looked up at the passenger window as a woman stared down at them. Her eyes were glazed as if she’d just awoken from a nightmare. The trailer barreled past, followed by a wave of hot air, dust, and oily diesel smoke.

  Eric closed his eyes against the wind-blown grit and involuntarily covered his head with his arms.

  He heard Brent shouting.

  He felt the collision in his bones.

  Before he could open his eyes, the world filled with the sounds of tearing steel and breaking glass.

  ***

  The crowd in Maggie’s parking lot became a screaming mob as the tractor-trailer swept smaller vehicles out of its path. People were knocked to the ground and trampled in bloody puddles of melting ice-cream.

  The trailer slewed sideways, clearing the street like a large steel finger. It broke away from the cab, flipped onto its side, and broke open like a fresh blister, vomiting its contents into the street.

  The driver of a Volkswagen Beetle pulled out of traffic and attempted to guide the car over the curb and into Maggie’s parking lot, when it was rear-ended by a brown Toyota, sending both vehicles into the crowd and mashing them flat like human bowling pins.

  The heap of twisted metal surged forward as a Volvo’s ruptured gas tank exploded with a concussive roar. Burning shrapnel flew into the crowd as the flames incinerated the ones unlucky enough to be standing too close.

  The traffic at the light jockeyed for position, bumper-to-bumper, as terrified drivers tried creating enough space to flee what was coming. In the chaos, the cars created an even worse bottleneck, plugging the street in a way that made escape impossible. A woman at the front of the line jumped from her Lincoln and was immediately torn apart beneath tons of burning metal. Her car was hit violently and sent skidding across the intersection where it hit a fire hydrant and became airborne. It jumped the front steps of the Victoria Theater and crashed through the box office, coming to rest in the lobby where patrons stared in shocked wonder. A large portion of the ceiling collapsed on them as they searched for the exit.

  Inside the theater, the movie screen went blank as a battered Ford LTD smashed through the wall, sending broken bricks and splintered wood into the seats. A dusty shaft of light beamed in, followed by the stink of burning rubber and gasoline. People inched cautiously around the wreck, escaping into the madness outside.

  In the lobby, gasoline pooled beneath the rear of the Lincoln, soaking into the carpet and spreading out in a growing arc. A fluorescent bulb from a
dislodged light fixture fell to the floor and shattered; a single spark ignited the carpet in a flash, turning the lobby into a crematorium.

  Outside, the wall of steel had come to a merciful halt. Terrified bystanders scattered like cockroaches while others braved the burning wreckage in hopes of saving those still trapped in their vehicles. Without warning, the Victoria’s lobby exploded, showering the intersection with broken glass and flaming boxes of Whoppers and Goobers.

  Emergency vehicles couldn’t reach the scene; the street was clogged with debris and mangled bodies. The theater burned furiously, killing sixty-eight people who hadn’t made it out in time.

  When it was over, the death toll had climbed to over one hundred people.

  ***

  “Oh… my God!” Brent exclaimed.

  Eric ran toward the intersection without looking back. Black, noxious smoke rose from the inferno and hung over the scene like storm clouds. Brent and Danny followed slowly, feeling trapped in a waking nightmare, their bodies on autopilot.

  Clouds of flies had descended on the contents of the ruptured trailer: battered cans of peaches and green beans, boxes of cereal that had burst open and clogged the gutters with rainbow-colored marshmallows, jars of pickles and bottled water that leaked their contents into the street, sticky blobs of maple syrup covered in a white dusting of baking flour.

  The smell was nauseating… a cloying mixture of backyard picnics and the choking stench of burning plastic…

  …and a darker, meatier smell of cooked pork.

  “That’s awful,” Brent gagged. “What is that?”

  “People,” Eric replied. “Burning people.”

  Brent bent over and puked between his feet as Danny and Eric continued on.

  The stench worsened as they neared the intersection. Danny glanced at a green Nissan engulfed in flames, an arm and head hanging from the passenger window, flesh dripping onto the street like burning grease. It was his turn to vomit. Brent put his arm around Danny’s shoulders, offering comfort as much as seeking it.

  Pained screams and dying moans bled together into a constant drone, like the sound of a million fat honeybees. Danny had covered his ears without even realizing it.

  Gino Macelli opened the front door of his shop and ran into the street, spotting a young woman trapped in her burning vehicle. As he fought to remove her seatbelt, his apron burst into flames, soon spreading to the rest of his clothing. Shrieking, he burst through the door of his business and beat at himself with blistering hands. He collapsed in the aisle, writhing on the floor as his lungs burned like rice paper and his body grew still.

  A little girl, no more than eight, stood along the curb, screaming at the top of her lungs. She turned to look at the boys as they approached. One blue eye looked at them pleadingly, while the other rolled in the socket, milky-white and useless. On the right side of her head hung a blond pigtail with a bright pink hair tie, while on the left, the hair jutted from her skull like a smoldering cigar, the hair tie nothing more than a blackened scrap. Half of her yellow skirt was burned away, showing a pair of flower-print panties and a deeply burned leg that would remain forever scarred.

  “What do we do?” Brent asked. “We have to do something.”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Eric replied.

  Danny nodded and cried silently. He felt useless. What help could he offer? He’d just be in the way.

  Two pre-teen siblings walked by hand-in-hand, calling out to their missing parents. The little sister bled profusely from a jagged cut on her forehead while her unharmed brother scanned the wreckage for signs of mom and dad.

  A Maggie’s employee carried an elderly woman away from the wreck of her car, his blue and white apron covered in her blood. The woman’s right arm dangled from a few scraps of singed flesh.

  A teenager with a green Mohawk crawled from the window of his wrecked GTO, his face covered in blood, his mouth and chin dotted with tiny white slivers that had once been his teeth.

  A crying baby sat in a car seat in the back of a Chevy Suburban as his father slumped over the steering wheel, motionless but still breathing. Danny saw his chance to do something.

  He ran into the street, dodging around people and jagged pieces of metal. He nearly tripped over a severed hand, a silver wedding band still on its finger. A yapping Chow-Chow, blood matted in its fur, ran past and bared its teeth before disappearing into the wreckage.

  When Danny reached the Suburban, he immediately opened the door and gently shook the unconscious driver. The man moaned deep in his throat as his eyes fluttered open, but he remained still.

  The baby screamed bloody murder and flailed his stubby legs. Danny reached in, unbuckled the harness, and pulled the wet child from his car seat.

  Eric appeared at his side. “Get him out of here.”

  Danny carried the screaming boy to the sidewalk and tried calming him with soft assurances.

  Eric rounded the truck and shook the driver. “Come on man, you have to get up.” Eric knew all too well what it was like to live without a father and he wasn’t about to let it happen to someone else, even if it meant carrying the guy on his shoulders. “Come on buddy, the kid’s okay but you have to get your ass moving.”

  “What… happened?” he groaned.

  “Don’t worry about that, just move it.”

  “Where’s Shaun? Where’s my boy?” He jumped from the truck, nearly falling into the street before finding his balance.

  Eric grabbed the man by the arm and helped support him as they left his crumbled wreck behind. As soon as he heard his son’s frightened cries, he bounded into the wreckage, weaving back and forth dangerously. Baby Shaun howled and reached out his chubby hands as his father rounded a crumpled minivan and stumbled forward.

  Reunited, the man snatched the baby from Danny’s arms and covered Shaun in kisses. The boy pawed at his father’s face and mouth, smiling and laughing, excited that his adventure had come to an end. The man wept openly, squeezing the kid so tightly that Danny feared he’d crush him.

  The man beamed as tears flowed down his cheeks. “You saved him,” he said. “Thank God you boys were here.”

  “You’ll have a story for him when he grows up,” Danny said.

  “I guess I will. This is Shaun and I’m Kevin.” He looked at Eric and his smile widened. “God must have sent me a couple angels today…”

  “We’re just glad you’re both okay,” Eric said.

  The happy ending lasted a brief second before another explosion covered the intersection in a wall of fire. A group of people that had been trying to save a trapped motorist scattered and ran blindly into each other as their clothing caught fire and the heat split their flesh. The man they’d been trying to free was trapped behind the wheel, pinned into his seat as the car’s interior became a furnace. He pounded on the inside of the window with hands that had grown black from the heat.

  Danny could no longer bear it. Sound faded to a dull buzz; his vision blurred. He felt his feet leave the ground as he fell back into an endless, black chasm.

  Somehow, the darkness was better.

  Chapter 8

  The sky was the color of old newspaper.

  Danny sat up slowly. His head was pounding and the acrid smell of smoke clung to his clothing like perfume. He stood and brushed a fine layer of dust from his shirt with hands that had grown numb.

  Where the hell am I?

  The intersection was quiet and colorless, the raging fires long gone, the rusted hulks of burned-out cars and trucks were cold, forgotten, left behind. Dead bushes and shrubs grew up through the cracked asphalt. Skeletons wrapped in tattered clothing lie scattered on the ground like abandoned crash test dummies. A crow sat perched on the roof of a nearby car, watching Danny with black, beady eyes. A mangy dog-like creature dragged itself from beneath a pickup truck with front legs that appeared stunted and broken. It sniffed at the bleached remains of a skinless foot as its flesh crawled with hundreds of tiny, red insects.

/>   “Scram!” Danny shouted. The dog-thing and the crow disappeared in different directions. Nothing else moved.

  Danny had seen the accident only moments before, but yet the scene was something from the past. A long forgotten steel graveyard. How much time had passed? Decades? Centuries?

  Clouds hung over the town like a dirty sheet, motionless with no wind to carry them. Broken trees pointed at the sky, leafless and gray.

  The remains of Maggie’s had collapsed, the fallen awning rusted and covered in grime. The Victoria Theater had crumbled into the street; stunted saplings had grown up through the blackened debris where they’d lived and died their short, tortured lives. The intersection disappeared into a deep, black hole. The streets and sidewalks were cracked and broken, covered in layers of dirt and dust. Storefronts and houses were abandoned, shuttered, rotting, slowly being reclaimed by time and the elements.

  A block to the east, the Elmview Apartments - a thirteen-story building - had fallen across the road, blocking the street in a jumbled pile of shattered brick and twisted steel.

  “Welcome home, Daniel,” a voice rasped.

  Danny spun on his heels and nearly fell, watching as a man seemed to appear out of thin air. He’d left no tracks in the dust behind him. The man appeared to be in his sixties, hair graying at the temples, clean-shaven, wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans. If Danny didn’t know any better, it could have been just any old guy on the street.

  If not for the telltale silver gleam in his eyes.

  “There’s no reason to be frightened. I’m not here to hurt you,” the man said. “I just thought it was time for us to have a little chat.”

  Danny sensed motion, a dizzying spin. When his eyes focused, he was no longer at the intersection.

  He sat on a splintered bench in Arlington Memorial Park. He’d know it anywhere. He’d spent unknown amounts of time here with Brent and Eric over the years, but now it was as dead as everything else in this strange place. The man stood nearby, picking at his fingernails.