Hello Darkness

by Sam Best

  The door which led to the small pathway behind the house was locked. Martin pulled out the edge of the venetian blinds that covered the window on the door and looked into the small backyard. One of the garbage cans near the edge of the house lay on its side and a torn garbage bag spat forth its contents onto the grass. Martin could see the remains of the family dinner: chicken wing bones and soda cans.

  He sighed and lowered the bat, cursing the day raccoons entered the woods near Falling Rock. Martin had chased more of the furry creatures away from his backyard in the past several months than in all of the years he had lived in the town combined. They must have been breeding in the woods next to his house. Normally the handles on the trash can hinged upward to snap over the lid, making it impossible for animals to get at the garbage. It wasn’t the first time Martin had forgotten to fully snap the handles in place and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  He stepped outside and walked over to the strewn garbage, then leaned his bat against the side of the house. The grass was cold on the bottom of his feet even though the temperature outside had not dropped much since the sun went down. That close to winter he should have been able to see his breath. Martin scooped the trash into the can before setting it upright. He made sure both handles on the can were firmly snapped over the lid before pushing it back against the house.

  The back door creaked behind him.

  Martin spun quickly as the door swung open a few inches. He didn’t see anything go into the house but he was certain he heard something moving across the floor inside. He picked up the bat and ran to the door. Heavy footsteps padded up the staircase, heading for the second floor.

  Fat raccoon, he thought. No catch and release for this one.

  As Martin ran up the stairs, he satisfied his anger with images of a raccoon’s head mounted over the fireplace in the family room.

  He heard the animal turn toward Tommy’s room and run inside. The door swung open wide as Martin reached the top of the stairs.

  His son sat frozen in his bed, eyes wide in the dark. Martin couldn’t see much detail, but he thought Tommy was trying to shake his head no. The sheets hanging over the edge of Tommy’s bed blew inward as something rushed underneath.

  Great, thought Martin. The raccoon would back itself into a corner and fight off any attempt at removal with razor-sharp claws and teeth. Probably had rabies, as well. Martin ran into Tommy’s room and flattened himself out on the floor next to the bed. If he could get at the thing before it could dig itself in, he might have a chance.

  As he lifted the edge of the sheet that hung over the edge of the bed, Tommy spoke.

  “Dad, don’t—”

  But Martin didn’t hear the rest. Something grabbed his shoulders—something big—and pulled him under the bed. He let go of the bat and grabbed the wood panel that lined one side of the mattress. His fingers dug into the wood until they broke backward as the monster—Tommy’s monster—ripped him completely under the bed.

  His son screamed on the bed above him.

  He should run, thought Martin.

  Tommy’s monster grabbed Martin and slammed him up against the bottom of the bed, pinning him against the box spring. The skin on Martin’s back burned as it was torn open by a dozen knives. Hot blood soaked his shirt. The bed’s wooden frame lifted off the ground and Martin caught a glimpse of his attacker’s wet, burned flesh.

  The thing let him go and he fell back onto the floor. Before the bed crashed down and engulfed him once more in blackness, Martin saw two rows of a thousand teeth hinge apart and close over his face.

  * * *

  Tommy screamed when his father’s legs disappeared under the bed. He was trying to shout for his mother but what came out was an ear-piercing wail. The bed lurched into the air and crashed back down.

  His father struggled with the monster. Tommy knew what it was the moment he heard the noises outside the house. He tried to warn his father as he stood near the stairs with the baseball bat but his voice wouldn’t work. He had opened his mouth to speak but all he could force out was a tiny whisper.

  Tommy didn’t see it run into his room and hide under his bed because it was too fast, but he knew without question that it was the beast from his nightmares. There was no way it could physically fit under his bed, but there was also no way the thing could exist in the first place.

  The bed lurched to the side and slammed into the wall. Tommy almost rolled off the side of the mattress but grabbed onto the headboard at the last second and held on tightly. He heard heavy snuffling below—hard breathing, then a loud CRUNCH, as if someone had stepped on a bag of potato chips.

  All was silent. Tommy held his breath and sat on the bed without moving. He was just about to peer down over the edge of his mattress when his mother ran into the room.

  “What’s the matter?!” she said, her eyes wide with fright. “Why did you scream?”

  “Mom, get out!”

  The bed heaved toward her as the monster below started moving.

  “Martin?” she said. “What are you doing under the bed?”

  Tommy was suddenly no longer in control of his own body. Every movement he made seemed to come from somewhere else; a place where fear took a backseat to survival. He jumped off the bed and landed next to his mother.

  “Tommy! Where’s your—”

  She must have seen something because she started to scream. Tommy didn’t turn around to look. He grabbed his mother’s hand and pulled her out of the room. He slammed the door shut behind him. A mirrored cabinet sat against the wall next to the door and Tommy ran around to the other side, then pushed against it with all of his strength. The cabinet tilted slowly at first before it toppled over and crashed to the ground in front of his bedroom door. No sooner had it landed than the monster in Tommy’s room slammed into the door. The cabinet scooted out a couple inches.

  Tommy saw everything so clearly. The world moved in slow motion as he took it all in. His mother stood at the top of the stairs, screaming into her hands. The cabinet moved farther away from the door. He could hear the monster breathing; could see a sliver of its shiny face as it tried to squeeze through the small gap in the door.

  Tommy waited until the beast crashed into the door one more time, then he used all of his weight to push the cabinet back into place. He turned around and ran to his mother. Without stopping, he grabbed her arm and led her downstairs as quickly as he could. She allowed herself to be guided down the steps and into the family room.

  “Where’s Martin?” she sobbed, over and over again.

  “Trust me, Mom,” said Tommy. He ran to the front door and unlocked the deadbolt. He felt as if a deep part of his brain was calling the shots; a part of his mind that was somehow less conscious but far more powerful than he had ever known.

  Upstairs, the loud crunch of wood meant that the barrier to Tommy’s room had been destroyed. Loud footsteps pounded across the floor above.

  Tommy looked across the room at his father’s car keys resting on the end-table next to the couch. The table was only a few feet away from the bottom of the stairs. Tommy knew that he and his mother wouldn’t stand a chance on open ground, even in the car. The monster had run into his room and under his bed so fast that it may as well have been invisible, so there was absolutely no chance of outrunning it on foot.

  Tommy pushed his mother outside and closed the door behind him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him as he ran to the corner of the house and around to the back. The monster slammed into the front door once, then twice. The pounding faded as Tommy pulled his mother farther into the woods behind their house. The moonlight faded and the only noise was their breathing and the crunch of dead leaves beneath their feet.

  “Tommy!” said his mother. She was still sobbing. “I’m so scared!”

  “I know, Mom,” he said, and rested both his hands around one of hers. “I know. But we have to go.”

  His mother spoke softly to herself as Tommy guided her through the dark woods.
“Oh, Martin, where are you?” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “What was it, Tommy? What was under the bed? You said there was a monster, but it was just your imagination…”

  It’s not my imagination, thought Tommy.

  Their footsteps grew louder and louder, so Tommy forced himself to slow down. He walked in a zigzag pattern, being careful not to go too far on any one direction. The canopy of leaves was thick overhead and the bright moon peeked through occasionally, painting the ground with squares of blue light.

  “Tommy,” his mother whispered, “where are we going?”

  “Down the mountain to the police station. We have to get help. Maybe the woods will be enough to slow it down.”

  Tommy pulled at his mother’s hand. She plodded behind him in a daze, her eyes wide and unfocused. She searched the surrounding woods as if she expected Tommy’s father to run out of the shadows and join them.

  “Maybe Martin will help us,” she said. “Don’t you think, Tommy? Don’t you think your dad will help us?”

  A branch snapped somewhere to his left. Tommy froze in place and pulled his mother close. His eyes strained against the deep shadow of the woods. There came another sound; low at first, then building until it hurt his ears to listen.

  Laughter.

  The sound of a hundred voices rolled into one laughed from somewhere in the dark woods. It was a slow, otherworldly noise that echoed over itself long after the initial sound faded. Tommy looked down at his pajama pants to find that he had wet himself. His mother stood next to him, shivering.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  The laughter wavered between singular and choral, but it was definitely coming from only one direction. Tommy squeezed his mother’s hand and pulled her in the opposite direction. If he could just get them both to Main Street and maybe to the Sheriff’s Office, someone there would have a gun and they could shoot the monster that was chasing them. Tommy wondered if his father was still in the house. He was probably injured and needed an ambulance.

  Thinking about his father made Tommy’s fear creep back a little, but it returned in full force when the laughter behind them stopped.

  No insects buzzed in the bushes. No owls hooted to each other from the trees. The only noise Tommy heard was the loud thumping of his own heart.

  “What’s that?” asked his mother.

  Tommy turned around. She stood staring up at the canopy, squinting into the shadows.

  “You see it, Tommy?” She pointed. “Right there. I think it’s getting closer. Oh, I wish we had a flashlight.”

  He saw it and he didn’t need a flashlight to know what it was.

  “Run!” he shouted. He grabbed her wrist and ran through the woods as fast as he could. Branches slapped him in the face and clawed at his thin pajama shirt as he tripped over roots and stubbed his toes against rocks.

  “Tommy! Tommy, slow down. Please, I can’t run anymore.”

  “We can’t stop, Mom!”

  “I know, but I need to rest, just for a—”

  Her hand was ripped from his and he turned back as a dark shape pulled her up into the canopy far above.

  “Tommyyyyyyy!”

  “Mom!” he shouted. “MOM!”

  Her body turned into a barely-visible outline as she was dragged ever higher into the trees. The last thing he saw was her curly blonde hair falling over her wild eyes right before she disappeared completely.

  The monster laughed. It was directly over him, somewhere up in the branches of a tall tree. The distant part of Tommy’s brain took over once again. It flooded his fear with anger until the fear drifted so far away that he could move again. The anger gave him energy and Tommy turned away from his mother and ran down the mountain faster than he had ever run in his life.

  17

  The Jeep Cherokee’s headlights swept over the gleaming side of John and Heidi’s RV as Ben pulled to a stop in front of his house.

  “There’s my girl,” said John, smiling. “She looks even better with the lights on, if you can believe it.”

  “That must be hard to find at your age.”

  John laughed and slapped his knee. “More than you know, Benjamin.” He opened his door and sniffed the air. “Ah, shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ben.

  He twisted his face into a scowl. “She’s been cooking again.” He slammed the Jeep’s door behind him as he walked to the front porch.

  Ben’s stomach growled as he followed John into the house. He hadn’t eaten all day and the rich aromas coming from the kitchen made him weak with hunger. Heidi stood in front of the stove stirring a skillet full of meat. All four of the burners were covered with skillets, each one sizzling with a different food.

  “‘Bout time!” she said over the sounds of popping vegetable oil. “This one was about to go looking for you all by herself.”

  Annabelle peeked her head out from around the edge of the island in the center of the kitchen. Her eyes widened and she ran over to Ben with her arms held high.

  “Daddy!”

  He scooped her up and hugged her close. Her hair smelled like cloth and sweat and food all at once. Ben thought about the missing girl, Amy, and about how her parents must feel at that moment; sitting at home without their child. He kissed the top of Annabelle’s head and set her back down on the ground.

  John frowned at her. “What am I, chopped liver?”

  She giggled and hugged his leg, although not as fervently as she had her father. “Hi, Uncle John. Aunt Heidi says you get crabby when you’re ignored.”

  “Is that right? Well, when I get ignored by a beautiful young girl like you, of course I get crabby!” John pinched at her belly with both of his hands and chased her into the family room. She ran before him, squealing with delight.

  Ben set his keys on the island in the kitchen and stood next to Heidi.

  “Did you find her?” she said quietly.

  Ben shook his head no.

  She sighed. “There’s beer in the fridge. I hope you don’t mind me cooking. The stove works, thank God, and that little one was ‘starvin’ like crazy’, as she put it. I gave her a piece of toast to hold her off until supper.”

  “Where’d you get all of this?” asked Ben.

  “I raided the RV. We like to do our own cooking on the road. Saves money since the cursed thing cost us so much to begin with. Gas prices are goin’ up and you can’t imagine what they charge to fix an oil leak!” She snorted and shook her head.

  “I thought John stuffed all the pantries with beer instead of food. And I thought you liked the RV.”

  “Oh, I love it. But that doesn’t mean the cost doesn’t bother me.”

  Ben kissed her on the cheek and went to the fridge. “Well, everything smells delicious.” He pulled out a can of beer from the fridge and popped it open.

  “It should be ready soon,” she said.

  Ben walked into the family room and took a swig of his beer. Annabelle chased John over the back of the couch and around the other furniture.

  “You have a surprising amount of energy for such an old guy,” said Ben.

  “Hey!” said Annabelle. “That’s not nice, Daddy.”

  John collapsed onto the couch, breathing heavily. “Yeah,” he said between huffs of air. “That’s not nice.”

  “It was a compliment,” said Ben as he sat in the rocking chair next to one of the couches. “Sort of.” Annabelle ran over to him and climbed up into his lap.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “Dinner will be ready soon,” said Ben. “Why don’t you go help Aunt Heidi finish up?”

  “Okay,” she said. She jumped off his lap and ran into the kitchen.

  “Talk about energy,” said John.

  “No kidding. I have a hard time keeping up.” He gulped down the rest of his beer and crushed the sides of the can. “I really needed that.”

  “More where that came from,” said John.

  Ben thought for a moment. “What we saw today in the woo
ds,” he said. “Did you ever—I mean, when you were in the war…”

  “Did I ever see anything like that?” said John.

  Ben nodded. He knew John rarely, if ever, spoke of his years as a soldier in the second World War.

  “No. Not like that.” He looked at Ben seriously. “But we don’t need to talk about that. How are you doin’, son?”

  Ben swallowed hard but tried to smile. “We’re doing alright. Once Anna starts school and makes some new friends I think—”

  “How are you doing?” said John, interrupting.

  Ben had to think about it. “It’s been close to a year,” he said, “so I’m doing fine, right?” He wiggled the pull tab on the top of his beer can until it snapped off.

  “Time’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “I thought…I thought I saw her in the woods. Marissa. That’s why I ran off.”

  John frowned.

  “It wasn’t the first time,” continued Ben. “That I saw her, I mean. She was upstairs on the bed when we first got here.”

  John nodded slowly. “But she’s gone, Benjamin.”

  “I know that,” said Ben, staring at his beer can. “Of course I know that.”

  A skillet scraped loudly across the stove in the kitchen.

  “Supper!” called Heidi.

  “Well,” said John, groaning as he stood, “let’s see what new poison she has planned for us.” He patted Ben’s shoulder as he walked past. Ben stood and followed him into the dining room.

  * * *

  Heidi had lit every candle in the low-hanging chandelier and the warm glow instantly made Ben feel better. Annabelle was already sitting in one of the wooden high-backed chairs, one corner of her napkin tucked crookedly into the collar of her shirt. Ben pulled out the chair next to hers as John sat next to Heidi across the table.

  “This looks amazing, Heidi,” said Ben as he reached for the serving spoon sticking out of a bowl full of mashed potatoes.