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

by Christopher Motz

  He put the gun to his temple and closed his eyes. He didn’t have the answers, no magic powers, only one way out of this mess before the creature could find him and use him. He heard the Skryel’s path of destruction along Broad Street. Crowds of frightened voices rose into the night only to be silenced.

  He applied pressure to the trigger and waited.

  Pain exploded in Danny’s arm. He dropped the Magnum and heard it clatter away in the dark. He searched frantically, trying to retrieve his weapon, but it was nowhere to be found. The tunnel shook, covering him in dirt and small stones. A portion of the ceiling collapsed, much closer this time, sending Danny reeling toward the entrance. His arm felt like it was on fire.

  He stumbled toward the mouth of the tunnel, following the smell of Elmview’s fiery death. He reached the gate and cautiously walked outside, instantly struck by the stench of burning flesh. He covered his nose and climbed the hill back to the highway.

  “Danny? Is that you?”

  “Eric?” He’d never been so happy to hear his friend’s voice.

  Danny jogged the rest of the way and found Eric crouching in a patch of tall grass. He grabbed him and hugged him fiercely, feeling Eric trembling in his arms. They began walking, saying nothing, glad to have one another in the crushing blackness. Eric stopped suddenly when he realized they were walking back toward town.

  “No, Danny, I can’t do it. Please don’t make me.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “There are things out here, Danny. Things in the dark. I heard them whispering to me.”

  “I know, Eric, but we have to end this.”

  “You mean we have to die.”

  “If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

  Eric resigned himself to his fate and walked at Danny’s side. The last beacon of hope crumbled inside him and fell into the sea.

  When they reached town, they saw the streets were deserted. If anyone was left, they’d gone into hiding. Their feet crunched on the ground as they stepped over a blanket of dead wasps. Danny stopped briefly and stared at the ground where Brent’s remains glistened wetly in the firelight.

  There was no sign of the Skryel.

  They walked down Broad Street in silence as Eric began crying quietly. He stopped long enough to talk to himself in hushed tones. When he started crying again, it sounded like laughter. Danny felt him slipping away. Whatever remained of Eric’s sanity was lost somewhere along the highway amid the shadows and whispering voices.

  The monster burst from the front of the barber shop a block away and stood in the center of the street. It watched them approach with a grin, feeling one step closer to its greatest achievement.

  Danny walked toward it as a strange calm came over him.

  “No, no, no,” Eric stammered. “Make it go away, Danny. Please, make it go away.”

  The Skryel reached out a giant black arm and crushed a house into a splintered heap. Another pounded a station wagon into useless scrap. A third found a man hiding behind a tree, pulled him screaming into the air, and tore him in half, raining blood into the street.

  Eric whimpered and clapped his hands over his eyes.

  “I’m not scared of you,” Danny shouted. “You won’t hurt me.”

  “But you are scared,” it growled, “and you should be. Everything hangs in the balance.”

  It reached out one of its growing number of tentacles and swatted the steeple from the roof of the Salem United Church. The tower exploded in a flurry of splintered wood. The bell landed in the street with a discordant thump and bounced through the front window of a doctor’s office.

  The closer the Skryel came, the more Danny’s arm throbbed. He knew it had done something to him but was powerless to stop it.

  The hidden heartbeat continued pumping beneath his feet.

  “I can give you anything you’ve ever wanted,” it said. “You can be eternal. Leave this world behind for one even more beautiful.”

  “Like you promised Brent, you son of a bitch? Where did that get him?”

  “Brent was weak. He hated you for being stronger than him, hated you for falling in love with Samantha and having something he could not.”

  “Because of you. You turned him against us. You made him hate.”

  “We’re wasting time,” it growled. It picked up a van and tossed it down the street like a child’s toy. The Skryel had grown; its head was even with the surrounding rooftops, its body spanning most of the width of the two-lane blacktop. Eric looked into its mirror-eyes in horror.

  Danny grabbed Eric by the shoulders and forced him to pay attention. “You need to stay here, okay? You’ll be safer out of the way.” He backed him into a small alcove between two houses and waited for him to comprehend.

  Eric nodded. “Yes, Danny, just make it stop.”

  “Don’t worry about the lonesome Traveler, let him die like his father.”

  “Fuck you,” Danny spit. “You’ve taken everything from me. You can’t have Eric, and you can’t have my home.”

  “Your home? This was mine until humans came along and forced me out. I don’t want it back, it stinks of human shit. I just want it gone.”

  It swept another of its many black arms and leveled the pool room. The propane tank exploded, covering the Skryel in a wall of flame. The monster continued toward them.

  Danny was so focused on the Skryel he didn’t notice the group of people that once again filed in behind him. Small groups became larger ones as he watched them emerge from their dark hiding places. They watched him with wide, hopeful eyes.

  Thirty yards behind them, the street collapsed into the sewer, cutting off any means of escape. The Skryel laughed and hurled a bicycle into the crowd, hitting a woman in the face and tearing her scalp wide open. She fell to the street in a spray of blood.

  “I’ll kill them all, one by one. Is that what you want?” it asked. “When I’m done with them, I’ll move on to your parents. When everyone around you is nothing more than rotting meat, I’ll bring your beloved Samantha and turn her inside-out.”

  “Leave them alone,” Danny cried. “This isn’t their fight.”

  Above them, in the swirling clouds, Danny heard the skinned vultures circling, waiting to pick over the corpses in the street. One swooped down and grabbed an old woman by the head, pulling her up and away into nothingness.

  “Where is Samantha, I wonder? Did she finally realize how crazy you are? Wanted to just wait this one out?”

  Danny’s squinted in pain as his arm throbbed more steadily and began to go numb. He staggered.

  “Maybe she’s still sore from all the things Brent raped her with. Did you ever meet a woman who could take a solid foot of broomstick up her ass? I’d say she was meant for a career in the adult film industry.”

  A sea of rats poured from the sewer and engulfed the crowd, biting and scratching and clawing. Eric kicked one away with a screech.

  “Maybe she’s already dead. Where has she been all day? Don’t you want to know? Don’t you care?”

  “Stop it,” Danny whined. “Please, stop…”

  Another house toppled to the street in a jumble of brick. Cockroaches poured from the ruins and scuttled along the gutter.

  Danny wished he still had the Magnum. Maybe he couldn’t kill the monster, but even if he could extinguish the glow of those mirrored eyes, he’d die satisfied. The Skryel laughed at Danny’s thoughts as thick viscous fluid dribbled from its mouth and steamed on the ground below.

  “Help us,” a woman pleaded. “Please, son, help us.”

  “What do you want from me?” Danny shouted.

  Eric crept from his hiding place and joined them, holding his grasping hands in front of him like a drowning man.

  The monster opened its poisonous maw and spit a large gob of yellow, sticky snot into the crowd. The glob of mucus hit a man in the face and began sizzling. He fell to the ground screaming as the slime ate into his flesh and melted the skin from his skull. A minute later,
the man’s head was little more than a bubbling bowl of soup.

  The crowd parted.

  Danny backed away. His resolve was crumbling. How could he fight this? Was it worth it? Everyone he loved was dead or dying or going insane. What would be left for him when this was all over?

  “See, now you’re beginning to understand. Just come with me and this will all end. There’s no sense trying to save a race that willingly kills itself. With or without my help, Earth will never be able to sustain your numbers. The planet is dying.”

  Danny backed away until he was one with the crowd. They reached out to him, clutching his clothing and hair in their sweaty hands. Their fingers brushed his skin reverently. The pain in his arm was excruciating. The Skryel sensed the moment of weakness and charged. It was close enough for Danny to touch.

  What the hell? he thought. He saw a strange, white light reflected in the monster’s eyes.

  He looked down and realized why the crowd had formed around him, why they clung to him, why they begged for his help.

  Danny’s arm was alive with white fire.

  He held it in front of him and the light brightened. It glowed beneath his skin, silhouetting his veins and bones. Danny looked up at the aberration as it loomed overhead. Energy surged through his body like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  The Skryel roared.

  Danny stepped back and bumped into someone behind him. Eric. He wore a sad smile on his face. His tears were gone, and he was no longer shaking. A calm had settled over him. He grabbed Danny’s hand and screamed in pain. The white light seared Eric’s palm.

  “NOOOO!” the Skryel cried. “YOU CAN’T! YOU CAN’T!”

  The cloud of undulating darkness thickened and drew tighter around the creature’s body. Its arms flailed, crushing cars and digging furrows in the asphalt. Telephone poles toppled to the street as the monster fought its way through a tangle of electric wires. Long tendrils of concentrated darkness reached out in all directions and destroyed everything they touched.

  Danny held his and Eric’s arms above their heads like a giant torch. The Skryel shrieked and momentarily paused. The light grew brighter, illuminating the street and all who’d gathered there, baptizing them in its pure glow. Shafts of white light extended from Danny’s fingers to each of those standing with him, drawing from their soul energy. They gave willingly of their essence, rocking side to side in a state of euphoria.

  The Skryel cursed and promised death, but Danny could feel it weakening. It stopped in the center of the street, unable to come closer. The shroud of black enveloping the creature quickly burned away in a brilliant blue fire.

  The pain in Danny’s arm was gone. He could feel the electricity crackling between his and Eric’s hands. Suddenly, Danny understood. He needed Eric by his side. The boy had his own power. He was Danny’s amplifier.

  “This isn’t over,” the Skryel bellowed. Holes opened in the monster’s leathery skin. Blood sprayed from its body and rained on those below. One of its legs snapped off at the joint and the beast stumbled. “I will have what I want!”

  “Not this time, Shadowking,” Danny replied. He pointed his and Eric’s arms forward like a giant flashlight. A sizzling beam of pure white light exited their closed fists and hit the creature in its pointed head. The lines of mirrored eyes exploded as it lurched backward.

  “STOP!”

  The beam of light pulsed in time with Danny’s heartbeat, counteracting the already present thrum of the monster’s own. The ground beneath the destroyed Rimmel factory split open and buried the dying remains of the Skryel’s life support system.

  “No more,” it howled.

  “Your kind is not welcome here,” Danny said. “You will never take what’s ours.”

  “I will have it!”

  The light surged one final time and died away. Behind Danny were dozens of desiccated bodies of those his energy had sucked dry. They had begged him for salvation, and in return, he gave them death.

  How am I any better than my enemy?

  The Skryel’s screams faded as its body slumped to the street. It writhed in a lake of its own blood, its arms reaching out and grasping at the air. It could no longer see him, but it knew the boy was close, could feel his essence burning like a star. It was too weak to speak. All it wanted was to return to the abyss and sleep.

  The darkness above Elmview parted and natural light filled the sky. Gray clouds passed overhead. The warmth of the hidden sun burned away the heavy, thick air.

  The Skryel’s body melted into a puddle of bubbling, black sludge that looked like tar. A light rain fell from the heavens, growing heavier by the minute. The black muck melted away, running into the gutters and carried along into the sewer where it belonged. Danny turned his head to the sky and let the rain wash over him.

  “You did it,” a weak voice said.

  Danny looked down and saw Eric lying motionless on the street. His body had been burned beyond recognition.

  “Eric, oh my god, we have to find help.”

  “No, Danny. I’m dying.”

  Danny sat next to his friend and wept. “You can’t die, you can’t leave me here alone.”

  “You’ll never be alone. I’ll always be close.” He tried reaching out to grab Danny’s hand, but his strength was gone. His body was shutting down.

  “I’m so sorry, Eric. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. The world needed you, Danny, and you saved them. You saved me.”

  Danny grabbed Eric’s burned hand and felt his skin crunch beneath his fingers. Eric was beyond pain.

  “I love you… brother.”

  Eric stilled.

  Danny sat in the rain and cried until soft, warm hands picked him up and carried him away.

  Somewhere inside of him, he’d found his strength, his power.

  He’d saved an infinite number of people who would never know his name or what he’d done.

  He defeated the Skryel and sent it screaming into the abyss…

  …but at what cost?

  ***

  The small television in the corner of the room was set to one of the local stations. Machines hummed and hissed and beeped around him. Cars passed on the street outside, dragging colored leaves behind them. Halloween was only a few days away.

  “I’m going to grab something from the vending machine,” Danny’s mother said. “Do you want anything?”

  “No thanks, mom. I’m okay.”

  Danny sat in an uncomfortable, straight-back chair, the same one he’d occupied four days a week for the past three months.

  Samantha didn’t move. Her eyes were closed and her body was connected to a dozen machines that kept her tethered to the hospital bed. Modern science was keeping her alive, but it couldn’t bring her back.

  Only she could do that.

  A television report caught Danny’s attention.

  “The small town of Elmview, Pennsylvania has effectively closed for business. The once thriving town was rocked by a series of bizarre events last July, culminating in what officials are calling a gas explosion. Much of the downtown area has been left in ruins and local businesses have cut their losses and set up shop elsewhere. Fearing for their safety, many of Elmview’s residents didn’t wait around to find out the fate of their homes. Some didn’t even bother taking their personal belongings with them.

  “The government has since stepped in, declaring a state of emergency, and evacuating those who still reside there. They say that although it will take months to complete the evacuation, they hope to have the town empty by March of next year.

  “Stories and eyewitness accounts have trickled in over the last few months, ranging from alien attacks, visitations by demons, and mythical monsters. The government is blaming these stories on the effects of the apparent gas leak.

  “Strange you say? That’s not the half of it. With the entire story of the Elmview evacuation, here’s our very own Jean Martin.”


  Danny stood and carefully walked to the room’s only window. It felt good having the sun on his face.

  “The town of Elmview, while never a bustling metropolis, was once a vital community. This past July, all that changed. A forgotten gas main beneath the town’s main street had been leaking for some time, causing the town’s residents to fall ill with a variety of startling health concerns and hallucinations. One spark and Elmview is part of the history books. The number of those killed in the blast has still not been determined.

  “After the smoke had cleared, things grew even more confusing, as locals began telling tales of government conspiracy and monster sightings. You heard me correctly. Monsters!”

  Danny tuned it out, he’d heard it all before. The government hung their hats on the gas leak while others seemed to remember bits and pieces of what had happened that summer. It was a great story. The tabloids paid quite well for interviews and photos of the ravaged town. Entertainment Tonight ran a special about it three nights in a row while celebrities weighed in on their thoughts and opinions. A novel and a television movie were already in the works, and some local disc jockey by the name of Dexter Maitland had turned his entire morning format into tales about local legends and things that go bump in the night.

  Danny knew what had really happened, and he was prepared to take the truth to his grave. Kids who told stories about supernatural monsters sometimes earned special rooms with padded walls and jackets with extra long sleeves. Samantha was the only one he could talk to. If she was still in there, and could still hear him, she knew what’d happened too. Far too well.

  The report continued. “After months of mourning and burying their dead, the remaining citizens of Elmview are moving on. Half the town’s residents have already packed up and moved away, while the others are still waiting for word on what’s to become of their property. The empty streets still bear the scars of this terrible tragedy.

  “The upcoming months will see water and electric services terminated, and talks have begun to revoke the town’s postal zip code. The tedious and heart-wrenching task of removing the interred bodies in Elmview’s five cemeteries is scheduled to begin next summer. The construction of a permanent detour around the town is in the pipeline for the spring of 1988.”