Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  His chin was resting on his chest, and he could see one of his legs crammed beneath the center console of his truck. It looked odd, like someone had thrown an old pair of blue jeans at the floorboard following a hard day’s work. He tried to wiggle his toe, but there was nothing. No connection, no communication. Nothing. Panic beginning to rise, he slowly dropped his eyes toward the seat. In the filtered, tawny glow that trickled through the shattered windshield, he could see his left arm resting, or maybe wedged, in the slight hollow between the seat and backrest. It looked OK, but another moment’s unsuccessful attempt to move it brought failure. And fear.

  “Please God, don’t let me paralyzed…” he whispered through dry, cracked lips.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. The drumming clatter rang softly again. It was accompanied by the metallic, vinegary scent of cold, wet campfire ashes. The sound was coming from his right, out of his vision range with his head at this angle. Forcing down the mounting panic, he began to test his extremities. Legs . . . no. The icy cold, gnawing spark of dread appeared in his stomach. Left arm again . . . still nothing. Sending out tendrils of alarm, the spark grew and reached. Right arm . . . empty, void, nothing. There was nothing. He couldn’t even connect with them. The frozen horror of his condition took hold and rooted around his now racing heart.

  TAP . . . . TAP . . . . TAP. Louder, slower—that sound again. His eyes shifted right, but the source of the taping was beyond the angle of his peripheral vision. Choking against the fear, he tried to move his neck. Contact. The momentary flash of relief with the connection was rapidly washed away by the heavy, vague pressure he now felt in his head. Worse was the muted “feel-sound” of gravel crunching underwater as his neck slowly turned. Sluggishly responding to his command, his head began to rotate against the pull of injury and gravity. Approaching the pinnacle of its arc, the forces began to shift. Push became pull, resistance became acceleration—and with a slow, grating twist, his head came to rest against his right shoulder.

  Eyes looking downward, Eric almost laughed at the unreal sight. In college, his vertebrate zoology professor had posed a question to the class on day one. “What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?”

  Well now he knew. His right leg was folded in half. Backwards. The dim light magnified his mental haziness, and with a slight lift of his eyes, he almost casually noted the severe, compound fracture in his right forearm.

  TAP . . . . TAP . . . . TAP. The thuds against the glass shook his awareness again. He could hear his own irregular, agonal gasping as his body struggled to function. He could taste the sharp, coppery flavor of blood in his mouth. And with each ragged, involuntary muscle contraction that signified another breath, he could feel the terrifying, malevolent specter of decades that would now be spent trapped in a useless body.

  Tap . . . . . . . . . . tap . . . . . . . . . . tap. The drumming slowed; focused . . . became almost sinister. Another salty tear gathered traces of dried blood and sweat as it descended through the maze of stubble on his unshaved face.

  Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Bursting with rapid-fire quickness, the tapping rang out again, this time just above where his head now hung limp. Eric closed his eyes and focused. With a monumental effort, still accompanied by the shocking awareness of shifting bones, his head began to rise. Up, up . . . and up. The feeling was not unlike trying to balance a basketball on a pencil, and his head finally came to a slow, unsteady stop in a vaguely upright position.

  Tap . . .

  Lubricating tears settled in the creases of his swollen, gritty eyes.

  Tap . . .

  Tiny muscles and nerves searched for missed connections, finally reaching a tentative agreement as Eric’s eyelids began to rise.

  Tap . . .

  Eyelids now up, he peered unsteadily through the fractured lines of the passenger side window. Michelle stood there. Beautiful, dark strawberry blonde hair silhouetted by the final golden-violet rays of the setting sun. Her head was tilted slightly down, veiling her face in the deepening shadows. Her fingers rested near the juncture of a lightning bolt shaped crack in the glass.

  Tap . . .

  A single cardinal red, manicured and filed fingernail descended with the authority of an iron gavel.

  “You left me Eric. I loved you and you left me.”

  Each word she spoke testified, rang true, and was admitted.

  Bang . . .

  The iron gavel slammed again.

  “I trusted you. You let them take me. You let them have me. YOU LET THEM CHANGE ME!”

  Eric’s very soul screamed under the weight of her words. They were true, and each one she spoke tightened the noose of judgment around his neck.

  BANG . . .

  Michelle lifted her head, revealing her angelic face, emerald eyes now corrupted into glossy, obsidian orbs.

  “I loved you Eric,” she hissed, “and you left me to die.”

  With a casual, almost nonchalant toss of her head, she lowered her perfectly white teeth to her own shoulder and tore off a patch of flesh. He watched in horror as Michelle snapped her neck skyward and then down, like a crocodile pulling a newborn zebra from the muddy bank into the watery depths.

  BA-BANG . . .

  The window shattered with the guilty verdict, and Michelle’s hand—once soft and holding his—shot through with serpentine quickness. Long, delicate fingers that should have been wearing a ring . . . Eric’s ring . . . now descended and crushed with vice-like strength around his already damaged neck.

  “I . . . loved . . . you,” Michelle spit each word out with venom as she thrust his head backwards, opening his mouth, “and . . . you . . . left . . . me . . . to . . . die.”

  Utterly helpless with undiluted terror, Eric watched as Michelle brought her left arm through the window, and almost reverently placed it in his open mouth. Glistening eyes the deep, deep black of a starless night leaned in close.

  “Eat,” she whispered as she forced his jaw shut, tearing off a small, ragged bit of her flesh.

  “Eat,” she said again as her powerful fingers forced him to chew, “and pay for your crimes.”

  “Eat,” Michelle gave a vicious, victorious howl as he swallowed, “and serve me.”

  The fibrous, fleshy chunk left a vibrantly sizzling trail as it descended into his stomach. Almost with a detached awareness, Eric began to note the hordes of gray-skinned figures closing in on the truck as the final sliver of light, of hope, slipped below the horizon.

  His eyes now closed, and with a strange, tingling warmth on his lips, he began to hear the whispers.

  Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. . .

  Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. . .

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. A spasmodic tremor jerked Eric awake. Eyes wide with the vivid recollection of the nightmare, he took gasping, shallow breaths as his pounding heart raced. He was on his side, still in bed with Michelle. Almost in the exact position he fell asleep in—foreheads almost touching. Light was trickling through a partially opened blind above the dresser, and in the unseen recesses of the floor beside the bed he could hear Max softly snoring.

  The pillow underneath his face was damp with hot, sour sweat, and he could feel his hair plastered against his skull. Forcing his breathing to slow down, Eric felt the razor edge of adrenaline-induced panic dulling as it slowly receded.

  With an apprehensive shadow of fear creeping into his throat, he delicately issued the mental command for the toes on his left foot to slowly wiggle. They did. Reassured, he checked off his other limbs. All were present and accounted for. A deep, slow breath followed, and then another, and then a third as his heart descended into double digits.

  Casting his eyes slightly upwards, Eric studied Michelle’s sleeping face. The fine, delicately chiseled features displayed both beauty and toughness . . . vulnerability and determination. A light, almost invisible scattering of freckles decorated her cheeks, now partially covered by a swirling descent of he
r long reddish blond hair. He could see her eyes shifting underneath their lids as she dreamed.

  With another shiver of memory, he said a quick prayer that her dream was better than his. It had to be. Another deep breath followed . . . and again. Finally, Eric began to relax as he came fully awake. His nose caught the distant, almost negligible scent of perfume. Michelle’s perfume. It was a light, flowery-musky combination that she wore like no one else. It was her scent. Never overpowering, even on the occasions where she had applied it in his presence, the fragrance always sent him tumbling back through time.

  He had watched the face so close in front of him change through the years. From a gawky, bright red-haired tomboy to somebody else’s stunningly beautiful prom date. From the ponytailed junior high school archery champion to the amazingly attractive woman accepting her commission into Federal law enforcement. And with each memory he kicked himself for not having the guts to tell her the truth. With a sigh and slow blink, he managed to push those thoughts away for the millionth time.

  And for the millionth time, they didn’t stay gone. It was their friendship. The one thing that Eric refused to sacrifice was the relationship with his best friend, even at the ongoing cost of his heart. Or maybe he was just afraid. He had been shot at by poachers, charged by bears, threatened by drug dealers and organized crime smugglers, and he had taken it all with a grain of salt. But the thought of somehow losing Michelle’s friendship, and the dream of more that was intricately locked to it, always sent the migration of butterflies straight to his stomach.

  And yet, the memories of the past few days were skewing his long held sense of reality. From hearing Michelle’s voice at Walter’s store just a few days ago, to the yellow-eyed feral charging out of the Gulfstream . . . and onward through Emily’s rescue and the battle at the cabin. The world was changing right around him. Maybe it was time that he changed as well. Maybe it was time to stop being afraid. Maybe this one moment, right here—right now, was the last chance he would ever get to tell Michelle that he loved her . . . that he always had.

  Quietly sliding his left arm from underneath the light covers, he slowly brought it up to her face. With a gentle touch, he gathered the wavy tangles of hair that had fallen across her cheek, twirling them in slow ringlets as his fingertips softly caressed her temple. Michelle’s lips parted with a deep inhalation as she ascended from the heavy fog of sleep.

  It was now or never, Eric thought.

  “I love you.”

  He had barely said it. The whisper of a whisper. A single flap of a sparrow’s wing amid the onslaught of a hurricane. But he had said it. And she had heard.

  Her porcelain face, eyes still closed and dotted with grains of sleep sand, broke loose and smiled with his words.

  “I know,” she said as her right hand slid underneath the covers and across his face, finally settling in a loose grip on the short, damp hair at the back of his neck, “and I love you too, but you left me to die.” She had breathed out the last words in a smoky, resonating voice. Sleepy eyes snapped open to reveal polished ebony mirrors that reflected back a fisheye caricature of his own terror. Fingers became inescapable bands of steel locked onto his hair . . . drawing him the final few inches to her piranha-like teeth.

  Eric screamed.

  Chapter 2

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. “Eric, are you awake?”

  Eric froze, rigid and disoriented as the twin nightmares—unwilling to depart –locked in a conflict with his slowly waking consciousness. Like ancient enemies battling for possession of his soul, they swirled and whirled in a vortex of scintillating colors. Dark violet sparking with angry, jagged shards of metallic green lightning struggled against a forest of blue-gray fog. The cyclone twisted and tore with vivid flashes of shattered bones and sharp teeth, but the growing, enveloping mist would not, could not, be denied. With a final blaze of white-hot embers and black eyes, the spinning whirlwind slowed, became still, and then dissipated in the rapidly brightening haze.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap.

  “Eric, it’s Amy. Are you OK?”

  “Yeah . . . just . . . waking up. Give me a minute, OK?”

  “OK. We just wanted to check on you. You’ve been sleeping for quite awhile and we wanted to make sure that everything was alright. And nobody wanted to open the door with Max in there.”

  As if that was his cue, a low rumble emanated from the floor beside the bed.

  Eric rolled over and sat up, sleepy eyes blinking in the fading glare of what he guessed was the late afternoon sun. It was shining in a single, wide beam directly through the room’s lone window, striking his face as it slowly transitioned to a watery orange postscript near the ceiling. Silent, but softly telling, as if it were a last chance echo warning that darkness followed in its wake.

  Squinting, Eric gradually shifted his head left and right, shrugged his shoulders and filled his lungs to capacity—holding it momentarily as he stretched.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  “What?” He snapped out with sleepy annoyance as the last vestiges of his restless slumber evaporated. Max apparently shared the sentiment and growled, almost snarling, at the disturbance.

  A gruff voice, partially muted by the interfering barrier, spoke. “Eric, it’s Walter. Do you mind holding Max while I come in?”

  Eric blinked his eyes and rubbed his forehead, still trying to transition into the waking world as he answered. “Give me a sec.”

  With another quick series of stretches and rolls, he became keenly aware that his body felt like it had been dragged a few miles down a rough cut logging road. And he was hungry. Starving, actually. A quick flip of his wrist to check the time resulted in a cascade of memories. No watch. Damn, he had busted it on the Gator. And then there was the cabin, the cowboy . . . Michelle and Uncle Andy. Shit . . . Uncle Andy! Wave after wave of memories crashed to the surface as Eric flipped the covers off, rotated and stood up. Immediately, a sharp, burning throb exploded from his ankle. A few not so mumbled choice words escaped.

  “You okay, boy?”

  Eric ignored him for second and called Max up to the bed. Max yawned, stretching his paws far forward as his massive black frame slowly rose.

  “Come here, buddy.” Eric thumped his hand on the still warm mattress. Max, after another stretch and shake, obliged and hopped up.

  A quick look around confirmed that he had no clothes except the underwear he had on. Grabbing one of the loose sheets, he twisted it around kilt-like before settling back on the bed.

  “Come on in.”

  Walter clicked the door partially open and peeked in, confirming that Max was under control before entering. He was carrying a large silver “hot bag” in one hand and a small, vaguely familiar duffel in the other. Extending the silver bag, Walter said, “Bernice washed up the clothes you was wearin’ when ya got here last night. There’s a few small rips and whatnot, and some of the . . . stains . . . didn’t all come out, but they’re good to go. I also . . . hope you don’t mind . . . but I borrowed your keys and got some clothes from behind the seat in your truck.”

  Eric accepted both packages, holding Walter’s eyes as he did. After a hesitant pause, he cleared his throat and said, “Tell me.”

  Walter nodded. “Your uncle is alive. Anything more than that is going to have to come from Doc. He’s waiting outside right now, him and Rebecca. Go on and get dressed.”

  He nodded mutely as he stood, wincing again with the pain in his ankle as he emptied the contents of both bags onto the bed beside Max. Black sweats and a ratty but comfortable Pittsburgh Steelers long sleeve top, both from the duffel, fit the ticket. He had two sets of socks, but no shoes.

  “Ain’t no sense in putting on socks ‘till Doc takes a look at your foot.”

  Eric sat back on the corner of the bed, sliding his hand onto Max’s muscular haunch for a moment of balance before nodding.

  Walter opened the door, and with a mumbled “C’mon in,” admitted Doc, Preacher Dave’s wife Rebecca, and
another lady that Eric didn’t recognize. All of them were carrying various bags, plastic tubs and containers. The lady he didn’t know was toting a five gallon bucket. Doc, although still haggard and worn down, appeared to have at least gotten some rest. The nurse Rebecca—her slim, almost angular face carrying the same reassuring half-smile—looked exhausted.

  Several folding chairs seemed to miraculously appear and the trio sat down. Two more identical chairs were handed through the doorway by unseen accomplices. One of the chairs went to Walter, and the other was unfolded and placed at the edge of the bed.

  “Put your leg upon this chair and let me take a look at your ankle,” Doc said.