“We’ve got a place to stay tonight,” Burt said, making me jump. He got out of the SUV and approached behind me. He was only a few feet away.
“Where?” I asked, turning my head in an attempt to conceal my tears.
“Derek and Andrews got ahold of Charlotte, of all people. I guess her family was somewhat well off and they own a mountain cabin outside of Front Royal. We can use it as long as we need. The best thing is, it has electricity and hot running water … God, I swear I will never take it for granted again.”
A hot shower and a night on clean sheets sounded good. Even though we were only in the camp for a little less than a month, it felt like a year. As appealing as it sounded, it still didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t think anything would ever make me feel better again.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We turned and walked back to the vehicle. It was time to leave. We couldn’t stay here any longer, and we had pressed our luck too far. I walked a few feet when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Cecil. I truly am,” Burt said with the empathy only a true friend can relay.
I think I acknowledged him; I am not sure. My mind and emotions floated and bobbed like a rowboat on a stormy sea. I shouldn’t be driving; still I slid back into the driver’s seat and fired the ignition. We turned onto the road and headed towards town.
Burt wrote the directions down on a piece of scrap paper and called them out at the appropriate times on our journey. When we finally got to our destination an hour later, my heart began to pound out of my chest. I didn’t remember a single damn minute of the trip; it was as if an hour of my life vanished like jumping to the next chapter on a DVD. Both my body and my mind, not to mention my soul, were spent. As I rolled myself out the door, I knew I was going to be lucky to walk inside.
Even though we were miles away from the nearest house, or paved road, the cabin contained all the amenities we hoped for. The only disappointment was that a large generator in the back provided the electricity. This meant we would need an ample supply of gasoline to keep the lights on for an extended period.
The cabin was a modern rustic with a log façade that ran from its stone foundation to the green metal roofline two stories up. Derek, Andrews and Charlotte sat on the porch in matching high backed rocking chairs.
“Welcome!” Charlotte said as she got up to greet us.
She abandoned our camp after a few days. Danny said it was stress because she wasn’t used to being in the field, in harm’s way. She was a self-admitted pencil pusher. What she saw and experienced in her short tenure with us was enough to make even the most battle-hardened person’s blood curdle. I couldn’t blame her one bit and if I was honest with myself, in another situation I might have done the same thing. God bless her for taking a stand though in a time when not many people would.
Her bubbly personality insisted she hug every one of us. When she got to Abbs, she recoiled in shock. Charlotte stared at Abbs as if she was some disgusting thing that just crawled out of the ground. I knew she didn’t mean anything by it. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have found a way to warn her. My fatigue took control of my emotions.
“That’s right!” I snapped pulling Abbs close to me. “That’s right, she is. I’m damn proud of her, too. Do you have a problem?”
Charlotte shrunk away like a wilting violet, shaking her head in apology. I felt bad, yet I was also too tired to care. Apologies would have to wait until I was better rested.
The next thing I knew I ascended the stairs to the porch and entered the large oak front door. It was almost like I was walking outside of myself.
The house contained three bedrooms, two downstairs and one upstairs. My family and I took the one upstairs while Burt and Sally took one of the downstairs rooms. Derek and Andrews took the one right across the hallway. Poor Dr. Winder took the oversize leather sofa in the den, but I don’t think he minded. He was glad to be indoors again and not in some ancient shack.
I didn’t have time to take in my surroundings as I made a beeline for the bed and collapsed. I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. I think I heard Barbara say she was going to get a shower and Abbs say she was going to sleep on the daybed. I’m not certain, I could have been dreaming.
When I awoke the next morning, I was not sleepy, but I still did not feel rested. I was sure my night was full of terrible dreams even though I couldn’t remember the details of any of them. Barbara was not in bed so I sat up and stared across the room at the daybed sitting in front of a large bay window. The sleeping, luminescent form of Abbs was resting peacefully, lying on her side with her back to me. I didn’t have the common thoughts that most people do about Impals such as, why do they sleep. Instead, I wondered if she blamed me. Who could blame her if she did? Most of all, I wondered if she still loved me. I would rather die and enter the Shredder than to think that my daughter did not love me anymore. I was about to call out to her when there was a knock at the bedroom door. I got up and opened the door to see Dr. Winder standing there with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Have you been outside this morning?” he asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
“No, I just got up … why?”
He shook his head as he furrowed his brow.
“I’m not sure. I would like you to come take a look … to confirm if I am crazy or not.”
I didn’t need to worry about getting dressed because I hit the bed fully clothed. I glanced over my shoulder at Abbs. She did not seem to be disturbed by Dr. Winder’s visit, so I followed him downstairs. Barbara was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. The delicious aroma that met my nose made my mouth begin to water. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until then. I felt a leap of excitement in my belly when I considered the prospect of having real cooking on a regular basis.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” she called from the kitchen’s arched doorway. “Did you sleep well?”
I knew Barbara better than I knew anybody in the world. I knew beneath the happy Martha Stewart persona, there was a hollow woman. I could see it in her eyes and her demeanor. She was a mother who lost two children in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe not lost to death, or at least death as we have defined it for millennia. Abbs was lost to our limited understanding of life. Steff was in the hands of a zealot lunatic, and I was sure that the brainwashing against us was in full swing. I think I could see Barbara’s emotion so clearly because I felt it too. We still had the essence of one of our daughters upstairs and, right now, we must cling to that at all costs.
“Not too bad,” I lied. “I feel a little better this morning.”
At least a half-truth is better than no truth at all.
In fact, I was so numb that I did not feel the pain of my injuries. Nor did I realize I was still wearing the same bandana and jersey.
Dr. Winder and I went outside and descended the steps to the small gravel parking area. He paused for a moment and then pointed up.
“What do you see?” he asked.
I looked up through the horseshoe shaped ring of behemoth oak and pine trees dominating the woods around the cabin. I stared for several long moments before it dawned on me.
“The sky is a little less lavender and has a very faint reddish tint?” I asked.
“And the clouds?” he asked.
I looked up again, not seeing any clouds at first then one slowly drifted over. I stood in puzzled astonishment as I ran my fingers through my hair. “They are orange!”
“Yes, a very distinct orange,” Dr. Winder agreed.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
Dr. Winder frowned for several moments as if considering something unpleasant then shrugged. “I’m not sure, probably nothing,” he said. “Perhaps an anomaly related to particulate matter in the ionosphere.”
“Huh?”
“Pollution,” he said.
In the months since the storm encompassed Earth’s atmosphere, I have never ever seen a faint reddish sky, let alone orange clou
ds. Every day, without exception, the sky was lavender and the clouds were yellow. Maybe pollution increased since the arrival of the storm? I wasn’t sure.
I was about to ask Dr. Winder about other possibilities when a bloodcurdling scream erupted from the house. My heart leapt into my throat and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I knew it was Abbs and she was terrified.
I flung the heavy oak front door open as if it was made of paper and bolted up the stairs. Barbara was hot on my heels. Throwing the bedroom door open; it thudded into the wall with a loud bang as Barbara and I tumbled into the room. Abbs was standing beside the day-bed. Her horrified expression was more than I could endure.
She walked towards us as if she was in a trance, her arms outstretched and her mouth silently forming the words, help me. I reached out to her to pull her tight to my chest.
“What is it baby, are you okay?” I asked.
The next thing I knew, Abbs wasn’t in front of me, she was behind me. She reached from me to her mother with horrified desperation. She passed through me and I did not even feel her, no cold, no warmth; only nothingness. Barbara reached for her. She might as well have reached for a tendril of smoke as her arms passed through Abbs as if she wasn’t there.
Her semisolid luminescent sheen faded to an opaque outline, her features growing fainter by the second. It was as if she was slowly fading out of existence.
“Mom, Dad … what is happening to me?” a faint, otherworldly voice called out in a pitiful plea.
Barbara and I made one more attempt to embrace our daughter, but it was no use. Abbs was gone.
Falling to my knees, I cried out in anguish. I felt a piece of my soul tearing away. We held on to each other as we huddled in the floor and mourned the loss of our daughter.
I never noticed that Derek, Andrews and Dr. Winder stood in the doorway and witnessed the whole thing. They went outside and conducted a fruitless search for Abbs. At least Derek and Andrews searched. Dr. Winder turned on the radio in the kitchen and listened to the news reports. The doctor let Barbara and I mourn as long as he dared before he came back to the room. He could not wait any longer because the situation was too grave.
“Cecil, you need to come listen to this,” he said as he helped us off the floor.
It took a while before I could summon the courage and the energy to accept Dr. Winder’s invitation. Dr. Winder helped her up and escorted her to the bed where he helped her to lie down. He returned and pulled me to my feet. My body felt heavy and it was a struggle to get up. I followed him down the stairs as if in a trance. I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table as he turned the volume up on the radio.
The announcer sounded like the same one who interviewed the general last night. It was difficult to tell because so many people from television moved over to radio. The government handpicked most of them. I think what made his voice hard to discern was the fear and panic it resonated in spite of his attempt to subdue it; his voice was rapid and shaky.
“Since this cosmic storm entered Earth’s atmosphere almost three months ago, there have not been any significant changes … well, that has changed today.”
He paused and took a deep breath before continuing.
“The color of the sky has definitely changed in this hemisphere. That is to say every place on the planet where it is currently daylight and …” he continued with newfound giddiness, “it appears that all the Impals have disappeared or are disappearing as we speak.”
“What did he have to be scared of?” I thought to myself. It sounded to me that the government, aka - my father, was getting exactly what they wanted and this person was their mouthpiece. My question was about to be answered.
“One moment. ladies and gentlemen … I am receiving some new information,” he said then the radio was silent for over a minute. Whispers and shuffling papers could be heard in the background.
“What is happening?” I asked.
He frowned and stroked his chin before responding.
“I would guess the eye of the storm has moved over us.”
“The eye?” I asked, incredulous. “You mean like a hurricane?”
“In a way … every storm, whether terrestrial or cosmic has a definite shape and a defined center. We were able to measure the size of this storm and its possible duration. Like the storms composition, we have no idea what kind of energy is in the eye …” he trailed off with a troubled expression on his face.
“What?” I asked.
We had discussed this one morning by the lake. It now completely slipped my mind. He decided to share some new information with me. Information he selectively omitted in our prior conversation.
“Well … the eye should not have arrived until at least two years from now, according to NASA’s calculations. Not many of their calculations or guesses have been right.”
“What if this isn’t the eye, what if the storm has passed completely?” I asked.
Dr. Winder shook his head.
“Impossible! If the storm passed completely, I would think the sky should be normal again.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked. “This is uncharted territory for everybody.”
Dr. Winder gave me a hardened stare for several moments, and then I saw the confidence melt from his features. He knew I was right. Before either of us could carry the conversation further, the announcer came back on the radio. He cleared his throat and smacked his lips. He seemed uncertain on how he should deliver the new information.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are receiving reports from several journalists worldwide. One from a journalist in Turkey, and another in Beijing, China,” he said, clearing his throat.
“We advise everybody to stay inside until further notice and keep as many lights on as possible, Awar Habib reports from Istanbul.”
Again, there was a long pause and another deep breath.
“The accounts we received from numerous sources state … and I quote … the very darkness seems to be a living thing, a malignant entity that engulfs and torments anyone it encounters. It is as if a shapeless and faceless devil occupies any area devoid of light.”
The announcer again cleared his throat.
“Folks, take it for what you will. It is nighttime right now in Turkey and in China.”
The sound of shuffling papers rustled again.
“The report coming in from China tells a similar and more disturbing story,” he said. “The report from Boqin Zhu reads as follows: the darkness is a conscious yāomó, thriving anywhere there is absence of light. I have witnessed many people outside my window writhing about in agony as the dark engulfs them, dragging them away to God knows where. Stay inside, stay in as much light as possible because even the shadows are domains for this horror, if not the horror itself.”
There was a long silence before the announcer spoke again.
“My producer tells me that yāomó roughly translates as an evil entity such as a demon or fiend, I …” the announcer was suddenly interrupted as a horrific scream erupted from the speakers.
I couldn’t tell if the shriek came from him or someone else in the studio. It was followed by bangs and then the shattering crash of breaking glass. The voice of a woman began to wail with desperation.
“Turn on the lights! Someone turn back on the lights!” she screamed.
Earsplitting screams vibrated the speakers. My stomach churned and my flesh crawled as I listened to this. Then, as fast as it started, it stopped. There was no static, no test tone indicating the station was off the air, only eerie silence.
Dr. Winder and I stared at each other in disbelief for a while then I shook myself out of my trance and bolted outside. The cabin had a number of windows facing every direction. With the curtains opened, there was plenty of light during the daytime; however the woods were a different matter. The cabin rested in an old forest with gargantuan trees that provided a sprawling dark canopy in several places.
My first glance was overhead. The sky was the same as it wa
s a few minutes ago. An instant later, my gaze was drawn to the forest … into a very dark area about fifty yards to my left. I was standing in a bright wide beam of sunlight so I screwed up my eyes to peer into the darkness. I felt like a clammy hand stroked my spine; my hair stood on end and my heart began to hammer. Even though I could not see anything tangible, I knew without a doubt something was there. Something was watching me. Whatever it was, it was waiting for the darkness to spread into my circle of light so it could pounce. I could not see anything other than the dark. What I was experiencing was more or less a feeling. It was the most certain feeling I have experienced in my life.
Staring into the blackness among the massive tree trunks, I could have sworn I saw eyes watching me. Dozens of pairs moving rapidly from tree to tree like burning coals. It was only a glimpse, and then it was gone.
I was startled when a deer wandered into the dark area. It approached with caution, sniffing the air. The instant its nose penetrated the darkness it was as if an unseen hand grasped it by the snout and flung it to its back. The terrified creature bellowed and kicked its legs in desperation as it writhed on the ground. After several agonizing moments, it managed to spring to its feet and dash away through the forest. It was as if the darkness spat it out. The poor animal bumped into trees and underbrush as it ran, panicked and confused.
I started to back away, several scenarios playing through my head like a movie on high speed. I glanced over at the generator humming away beside the house. It was our only source of electricity … how much gas did we have? The road approaching the house was full of gloomy shade.
I was about to ascend the steps on the porch to discuss our predicament with Dr. Winder when I experienced a horrific sense of déjà vu as another scream erupted from the house. This time it was Barbara. I glanced up at our bedroom window and saw the drapes were drawn. Barbara was up there … alone … and in the dark.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you God for all I am and all that I will be. I will always do my best to put you first in everything.
The Myriad Resistance Page 26
