The Dark Ones

by Anthony Izzo

  Engel turned his head. He clasped Charles’s chin in his pale hand. “I want you to watch. She’ll do her share of screaming before I’m done.”

  “I’ll enjoy watching you die again,” Charles said.

  “She bears the mark, much like you, doesn’t she?” Engel said, and pointed to the irregular birthmark on Charles’s chest.

  “That means she’s strong enough to kill you.”

  Engel gave his head a shove. “My army is descending right now. The sun is low in the sky. You won’t see another sunrise.” To the two demons holding Charles he said, “Take him back inside. Bind him to the wall.”

  As they led Charles away, Engel watched the cloud.

  He raised his arm again and summoned forth a soldier. Engel had personally seen to this one’s torture in the depths. He had cut off the ears, slit gashes in the skull. “The girl will have a red mark on her skin. That’s how you will know her.”

  The soldier grunted and fell back into the mill.

  Go now, my children. Bring her to me.

  Milo had pulled the truck off the 190 at the Elm Street Ramp. They made a few turns and wound up on Washington Street. It was on Washington that Laura saw they couldn’t go that route. A blue Hummer and an SUV had collided. Both cars had met head-on and were now blocking the street. A third car, some sort of wagon, had flipped over. The windshield was smashed and shards of glass littered the asphalt.

  She looked at the sky. The cloud swirled faster.

  “Damn it, have to find another route,” Milo said, and backed the truck up.

  “Be quick,” Laura said.

  The truck rolled backward. Laura watched the sky. Milo began to swing the truck back onto Broadway, the street from where they had turned. Laura looked out the rear window and saw it. A black, funnel-like cloud descended from the mist above, extending like a bizarre finger. It swirled and churned soundlessly, touching down and remaining in contact with the ground for a moment. There were others, perhaps ten or twelve in different locations. The one she was watching dissipated, and in its wake left a group of the Dark Ones.

  She heard screeching coming from above and saw winged things dipping and swooping from the clouds.

  The second night of attacks was about to begin.

  The horde of Dark Ones was about a hundred yards away.

  “Look behind us,” Laura said.

  The others in the truck turned. Mike muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

  One of the demons pointed at the truck, and then they started forward, lurching, dragging limbs behind, others running.

  “Gun it, Milo,” Laura said.

  Getting to the HSBC building would be tough. Straight ahead would take them to Court Street, then into Niagara Square. They could either flee into City Hall or the Statler Towers. She voiced these options to the rest of them.

  “Either or,” Milo said.

  They drove ahead, hitting Niagara Square, a large traffic circle where the white obelisk dedicated as a monument to William McKinley stood. Milo drove a quarter way around and jogged off on a diagonal, onto Delaware Avenue. The Statler Towers, which had once been a grand hotel, stood right near the square. Milo double-parked and they all jumped out.

  Laura could hear glass shattering and the voices of the demons, speaking in garbled tongues.

  They grabbed the groceries and supplies from the truck bed, then found the doors locked. Mike took out his .45, blasted out the glass, then reached in and unlocked the door.

  They hurried inside and went up a set of marble steps. The grand lobby, with its twenty-eight-foot ceilings and wealth of Botticino marble, had been designed to impress visitors. Done in a Renaissance-revival style, it had been Buffalo’s grandest hotel. Now the lobby was occupied by retail shops, and across from the shops were the elevators, their doors gold.

  Mike got to the elevators first. He hit the button.

  Laura watched the elevator light with anticipation. If they were caught in the lobby, they were dead. A moment later the elevator arrived; the five of them hopped on and Mike hit the button for the top floor.

  The elevator started up and Laura felt the little twinge in her gut that went along with elevators and roller coasters.

  They got off on the top floor and stepped out into a beige-carpeted hallway. The hallway was dim, save for some moonlight that spilled in. A set of double wooden doors was directly ahead and on it a sign for an accountant’s office. Laura tried the doors and found them locked. She guessed most of the places would have locked up for the night.

  They spent a few minutes trying other doors on the floor and found them all locked. Laura supposed if the Dark Ones got up here, hiding behind a thin door wouldn’t offer much protection anyway. She wondered if they would find the stairway doors or if they would roam mindlessly in the lobby, thinking their quarry had escaped. She hoped for the latter.

  “Why don’t we at least set these bags down?” Debbie asked.

  They set the bags at the end of the hallway that branched off in two directions. One direction led to a dead end and a window. Laura saw a dull gray door to her right marked STAIRS. The hallway continued to the left, beyond the stairway door, wrapping around the corner. She had an idea.

  The rest of their group was looking through the food and supplies.

  “Someone should stand on the landing, listen for them coming.”

  “I’ll go first. We’ll switch off every half hour or so.” Milo said, and went to the door. He held the .45 at his side. It wouldn’t do him much good, but Laura wasn’t about to tell him. He gave the panic bar a shove and disappeared into the darkness.

  Milo stood on the landing in the dimly lit hallway. Shadows seemed to lengthen and shrink on the concrete walls. It was cool and damp. He sat listening, straining to hear the slightest sound. It brought him back to his days in the jungle, listening for a branch to snap, a noise that would give away the enemy’s position. He found himself gripping the railing in front of him tight enough to make his knuckles white.

  From below, a door opened and slammed. He took the .45 out of his belt. He cocked his ear but heard nothing else. Best tell the others, he thought.

  He went back into the hallway, where Laura, Mike, and Sara sat against the wall. Mike was eating a granola bar and Laura had opened a bottle of spring water. Sara sat with legs crossed. Head down, she was fidgeting with her hands. Debbie stood near the window at the end of the hallway.

  “I heard a door slam. Just be ready.”

  Milo went back out into the hallway and Sara watched Mike follow, taking out his gun. She would be their only real defense against the Dark Ones and contemplated going out in the hallway.

  She got to her feet, as did Laura. She looked over and saw Debbie standing in the moonlight, watching out the window.

  “I should go out there with them,” Sara said.

  “Stay here for now,” Laura said. “It might be nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. It’s them.”

  “Just stay with me.”

  Milo and Mike had decided to descend a few flights. They stood on the gray steps, listening. The sign on the doorway read 16. Milo figured they might be able to hear something if they moved down. So far, there had been no other noises. No footsteps, no voices speaking strange languages. Nothing.

  “You sure you heard something?” Mike asked.

  “Clear as day.”

  “Should we go down farther?”

  “No. I don’t want to have to haul ass up ten or twelve flights of stairs. Besides, what if they find some way around us?” Milo said.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan. Coming here.”

  “Gee, General Patton, maybe you should have thought of that sooner.”

  Mike scowled at him. “I didn’t hear any better suggestions.”

  “Listen.”

  Sara watched Debbie at the window. She saw the shadow blot out the moonlight, then splash across Debbie, as if she were being marked. She started to tell her to get away from th
e window, but her voice caught in her throat and she felt herself move toward Debbie. A pair of glowing orange eyes appeared just before the glass shattered and a clawed hand came through and grabbed Debbie’s arm. Debbie let out a gurgling scream as it drew her back toward the window.

  Laura, looking desperate, said, “Sara!”

  Sara ran for the window.

  “I’m going down to have a look,” Mike said, and brushed past Milo.

  Mike was being a damned fool. Milo said, “Stay here.”

  “Be right back. I’ll just go down a few flights.”

  “You’ll give us away.”

  Mike didn’t listen. He shuffled down the steps and turned onto the next landing. Milo squeezed the gun’s handle harder.

  Mike descended two more stories. He stood outside the door that led to the fourteenth floor, listening. He was pretty sure Milo was full of crap and had been hearing things. They would have heard a bunch of the freaks stomping up the stairs by now.

  He went down one more flight, and when he saw the next landing, he realized why they had been silent: a thick black mist hung like a curtain in the stairway. They had entered the stairway and then turned into mist and traveled silently, much like the first attack on the city.

  He turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sara watched the beast wrap its arm around Debbie’s waist. Its form was visible through the window, winged and pale gray, as it hung on the exterior of the building. Debbie splayed her arms on either side of the window and dug her fingers in, trying to keep from being yanked outside.

  It seemed, in Sara’s mind, to take her several minutes to reach the end of the hallway. When she did, she grabbed Debbie’s arm and pulled. Debbie didn’t budge, but instead got pulled harder. She saw the drywall start to crumble where Debbie’s fingers grabbed. The demon let loose a series of excited grunts, as if it knew its prey were getting weaker. There was no way she’d win a tug-of-war with the creature.

  Now Laura joined them at the window and hunkered down and grabbed Debbie’s legs to prevent her from being pulled from the building. Laura clamped on and pulled.

  Sara looked for a place to aim a beam. She couldn’t get off a shot without hitting Debbie.

  The creature pulled. Debbie slammed against the window.

  Sara saw her opportunity. The creature’s arm, just above the elbow. She raised her hand and light radiated from her fingertips. Bringing her hand down in a karate chop motion, she sliced the Light into the demon’s arm. Its skin smoked but Sara had only partially severed its arm. She saw a mess of blackened muscle and bone where the blast had hit. Now Laura began to tug on Debbie’s legs and Debbie tried surging backward. Sara saw the skin on the thing’s arm start to stretch, the damaged bone being pulled apart as well. It howled and shrieked.

  She gave it another chop and this time the arm severed. Debbie flew backward, barreling over Laura, and they both wound up on the floor. The demon’s severed arm fell inside and landed on the carpet. Sara watched the muscles flex, the clawed hand grasping for something. After a moment it became still. The demon, now angry and wounded, flapped its wings and pulled away from the window.

  “Move away,” Sara said.

  The other women listened, crawling rapidly away from the window. They weren’t ten feet away when something struck the window frame hard enough to bend it in and nearly knock the frame out. Sara looked and saw the walls had buckled. For a split second she saw the now one-armed demon and then it disappeared from the window. It was going to come back for another run.

  “The elevators. Get Mike and Milo. We’re trapped,” Laura said. “Debbie, you okay?”

  She was slightly hunched over, rubbing her side. “My ribs are sore, but I’ll make it.”

  The trip to Laura Pennington’s apartment had turned up nothing, and Frank was beginning to lose hope of finding her. He and Jenny had knocked on doors of the neighboring apartments and found out nothing. Two people didn’t answer, and an elderly woman named Margaret—who invited them in for gingersnaps—said she hadn’t seen Laura in a few days. They declined the gingersnaps.

  They had stopped at Buffalo General Hospital. Frank knew Laura worked there from his conversations with Charles. The hospital’s emergency room was littered with people. The wounded and the dying were on gurneys in the halls, slumped against the walls, half conscious in waiting-room chairs. The nurses and doctors, pale and drawn and looking like the walking dead, rushed from patient to patient. They couldn’t have stopped to talk if they wanted.

  So now, they headed down Delaware Avenue, Frank watching the fingerlike extensions dip down from the mist to deposit their deadly passengers on Buffalo’s streets. They reminded him of a tornado. He had only experienced one. He had been five and remembered hiding in his Aunt Carol’s root cellar while the door shook and it sounded like God himself were trying to uproot the house.

  They were headed back toward Laura’s apartment, hoping to catch her, to find the girl and possibly Charles. Jenny was driving, Frank in the passenger seat rubbing his forehead, as if that would inspire him to find Laura. He looked up as they approached the apartment building.

  He saw the flash in the sky, shooting from the upper floor of the old Statler Towers. It was a Guardian’s beam, no mistaking it.

  “Stop the truck, pull over,” Frank said.

  “It’s getting dark. We need to get inside.”

  “Do it.”

  Jenny pulled the truck over in front of a coffee shop called Common Grounds. Frank peered at the Statler. On the wall he saw a winged shape. It clung to the side of the building and appeared to be reaching in the window.

  “What is it?” Jenny asked.

  “Look,” he said, pointing. “That building. There’s a Guardian in there, I saw the beam.”

  “Maybe David’s up there,” she said, sounding hopeful.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Jenny checked her rearview mirror, pulled away from the curb, and headed toward the Statler.

  Milo heard quick footsteps slapping on the stairs. He tensed up, got into a shooter’s stance, just in case it wasn’t Mike. It was Mike, and he was coming so fast he tripped and fell forward on the stairs, putting his hands out to catch himself. He quickly regained his balance and looked wild-eyed at Milo.

  “Back inside! Elevators!”

  “They’re coming?”

  Mike grabbed him by the arm and urged him up the stairs. “They came up the stairway as mist. That’s why we didn’t hear them after the door opened.”

  Now Milo’s heart thudded. He found himself bounding up the stairs, trying to keep pace with Mike, wanting to look back and see if anything was gaining but terrified of what he might see.

  They reached the eighteenth floor and he heard them coming. No need for them to be stealthy anymore, he thought.

  He followed Mike through the door and they slammed it behind them. It opened out into the stairwell, so there was no way to bar it. No way to stop them.

  He turned around and found that the stairway wasn’t the only problem: something slammed into the outside wall hard enough to buckle the drywall. Laura, Sara, and Debbie were on the ground, crawling away from the window. Debbie held her ribs and Milo’s heart sank a little.

  She’s been hurt. My girl’s been hurt.

  Sara and Laura grabbed Debbie’s arms and hoisted her up. Sara saw Milo and Mike at the other end of the hallway. They looked like two men who had just discovered the stairs were on fire. Or worse. The winged demon outside had just hit the wall hard enough to buckle it. A few more shots and it might find its way through.

  Sara and the other women went to where Mike and Milo stood near the stairway door. Milo’s face was red and sweaty; Mike’s skin looked pale against his dark hair.

  “What is it?” Sara asked.

  “They came up the stairs in a mist. They’ll be through the door any minute,” Milo said.

  “The elevators,” La
ura said. “Go.”

  They headed for the elevators, Sara in the lead, Milo and Laura helping Debbie along. Sara got there first and hit the down arrow. She heard the stairway door open. The grunts and growls of the Dark Ones followed and she looked and saw them reach the junction near the elevators. There were at least a dozen, all armed with jagged knives and spears.

  The elevator doors opened with a ding. Sara, Laura, Debbie, and Milo piled inside. Mike hesitated. He was raising the pistol, a futile effort in Sara’s eyes, but there he stood, like a sheriff facing a gang of outlaws. He fired, the blast sounding like a howitzer in the small space. She heard an awful shriek and saw Mike duck toward the elevator. The doors began to close. He managed to slip through, but one of them, a gaunt-looking thing with the skin peeled from half its face, jammed its clawed hands inside and pressed the doors open.

  Sara stepped forward to blast it, but two more of them appeared, one of them holding a spear with a barbed tip. It thrust the spear ahead and she was sure it would run her through, but someone shoved her aside and she caught a blur before realizing it was Milo. The spear caught him in the side and he fell half out of the elevator. Sara managed to gain her balance and whip a beam at one of the Dark Ones. The light ripped into its throat and it fell back into the hallway.

  Now more Dark Ones appeared outside the elevator and she realized with dread that they had grabbed Milo and were dragging him away. She heard Debbie yell, “Dad!” and was aware of hands trying to pull her back into the elevator. Milo was almost out.

  Not if I can do something about it, she thought. She wrenched away from her friends and ducked past the demon and into the hallway. Milo moaned as two of them dragged him across the floor. She looked down the hall and saw the corridor was now packed with them. It looked like a convention for freaks.

  More of them jammed into the elevator and dragged Mike, Debbie, and Laura into the hallway. Laura backed against the wall. She stood alone. The demons stood a few feet away. They clutched and grabbed at their captives. Two of them jerked Milo to his feet and he let out a groan. Sara saw the spreading blood on his flannel shirt. He’d been stabbed by one of their blades. Milo would suffer the same fate as David.