This Darkness Light

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Father Nicholas insisted Isaiah call him simply Nicholas once Isaiah became a priest himself, though the other man would always be his senior in age, rank, and wisdom. ʺYouʹre a brother, youʹre a fellow servant. Simple as that.ʺ

  Simple as that.

  They played cribbage together. Nicholas loved the game with a simple wooden board, jumping pegs to the tune of points accumulated by cards. A game part luck and part skill. The first time Isaiah saw the cribbage board, he thought it looked genuinely stupid. He quickly grew to love the game. Almost as quickly as he had grown to love the long talks while playing with Nicholas, and Nicholas himself.

  Nicholas had seemed to save him. And genuinely had given him some good years. Some years of happiness.

  Until Isaiah threw it all away.

  Now, somehow, Nicholas had been called to judgment. Not for his own sins, but for the very fact of Isaiahʹs existence. For the original sin, the blight, that Isaiah represented in the sight of the Almighty.

  He gritted his teeth. Pushed the car to go faster.

  He had to avenge his friend.

  He had to get Katherine back.

  He had to save the world.

  And so he would find and kill this nameless man.

  Simple as that.

  PRESENTING THE PAST

  From: POTUS

  To: 'X'

  Sent: Friday, May 31 3:25 AM

  Subject: New methods

  Wait, now weʹre supposed to BURN them as well?

  First it was shoot them, then shoot them in the face, now burn them. What next, a stake in the heart? Silver bullets? Holy water?

  From: X

  To: Dicky

  Sent: Friday, May 31 3:25 AM

  Subject: RE: New methods

  Burning is the best method to insure the containment of the contagion. Donʹt be melodramatic. I canʹt see any need for holy water, now or ever.

  ***

  Sometimes she sees the past, sometimes the present. Occasionally she thinks it possible that she is witnessing the future.

  But it is (or was, or will have been) all fragmented, three separate vessels that once sat in a specific order until they were knocked off their shelf, shattered, then put back together. Only whoever had done the put-backing had mixed all the pieces. Today is tomorrow, tomorrow is yesterday, yesterday reaches fingers into today and turns all into a muddle in her mind.

  She knows, sometimes, that she isnʹt right. That pieces of her have been lost. Never again to be found.

  She very often hears fragments of a song, a womanʹs voice.

  ʺJesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so….ʺ

  Then a bright light and a loud sound and nothing for a long time.

  Often she sees a face when she hears the song. It is a woman, a lady with a face sometimes kind and sometimes harsh. She has blue eyes. She wears a gun under a flowing blouse that is soft and expensive.

  Other times she sees another face. A black man with a smile that does not go all the way to his eyes. His eyes are always sad. The man is wreathed in sadness, carries it with him, uses it like a drug.

  She has seen drugs before. Many many times.

  Sometimes other faces swim into focus before her eyes. Then, now, now, then. Faces above white coats, faces kind of countenance, faces that seem bent on her destruction.

  And now–yesterday? tomorrow?–another face pushes into her mind.

  Usually the faces are mist. Ghosts. Only the woman and the black man have real substance. Though even if real she cannot tell if they are a reality of today or yesterday or some tomorrow still to come.

  This new face is different. Different from the ghosts, different also from the woman and the black man. His face swims before her, and she feels strangely violated. As though his face has entered her thoughts by force. As though violence has just been done to her mind.

  He is elegant. His hair is dark but gray flecks it along the temples. His eyes are jade green, rich and luxurious. They stare directly at her, and the girl stares back at him. This has never happened before. She has never been able to look directly at any of the faces. Perhaps that is why they all seem like ghosts.

  The green eyes dance. They seem amused. She knows that they are amused by her. By her discomfort. Her confusion.

  Her fear.

  ʺYou are the pretty one,ʺ he says. He has a gray suit on, and it seems to crawl over him. A trick of her mind, but the man seems suddenly as though he wears not wool or cotton or linen but rather a hard shell, an alien armor.

  No one has ever called her pretty before. Not that she remembers. Not since the light and the noise and the change of everything. She should be pleased. But she is not. She is afraid.

  The man runs a tongue over his lips. It is gray and fleshy. ʺYes, very pretty.ʺ

  There are others nearby. Men beside and in front of and behind her.

  And this elegant man, this Other Man. She does not understand this. Is her mind unbreaking? Is she coming back to herself, to the She that was lost?

  The man reaches up as though to touch her, but stops short. His hand stops in front of her cheek and he caresses the air. He looks as if he struggles not to jump on her. To rip and tear her flesh with his teeth, to kill and consume her.

  She would shiver and shudder if she could. She cannot. Her body has lost that–and so many other–abilities.

  The Other Man twitches, his eyes rolling back as though the urge to kill has turned to sublime ecstasy. His hand drops. ʺNot yet. Not yet, my flower. My innocent one. But soon.ʺ He looks at the other men. They are in a car, or perhaps a truck. It bounces as they travel to she knows not where. ʺWho wants a piece of her?ʺ

  ʺSheʹs broken,ʺ says one of the ones in front. ʺI donʹt do broken. I break ‘em, but after that…meh.ʺ

  The others agree.

  One voice speaks last. The voice of the man who sits behind her. ʺIʹll play with her.ʺ The owner of the voice leans forward. He is thin. Bony. A grinning skull atop a to-thin neck. Again, the girl wishes she could shudder.

  He touches her. His fingers scrape across the hollow of her throat. His skin is cold. ʺI like to play with the retards. They last longer. They scream louder.ʺ

  The other men in the truck are quiet. The air has changed. They, too, are afraid. Of the Other Man, and the thin man.

  The face of the black man suddenly appears in front of her. His eyes are sad, and she wonders if this is what he has always been so sad about. If, like her, he exists in past and present and future and has always seen this in store for her.

  The man with the graying hair shakes his head. ʺSometimes you astound me, Mr. Melville.ʺ

  ʺIn a good way, I hope, sir,ʺ says the thin man.

  ʺOh, the best.ʺ

  ʺIʹm so glad.ʺ The thin man touches her neck again and then disappears to the place he came from.

  ʺThough I wouldnʹt use the word ‘retard.ʹ It rather lacks in style.ʺ

  ʺIʹve never been stylish, sir.ʺ

  ʺNo, thatʹs true.ʺ

  The Other Man looks at her with those green eyes. They are so bright, even though the rest of the place they are in is dark. Like they are stars shining in a dark night. Only they are cold stars, bringing no hope.

  ʺI canʹt wait to see what Mr. Melville does with you, my dear. He is an absolute prodigy.ʺ

  Again his hand raises to her face. Again he does not touch her. His eyes glow with lust, hatred, murder. A thousand thoughts ugly and crude and naked for her to see.

  Then one of her black moments must happen, because she blinks and the Other Man is gone. The others are still there and she wonders where they are taking her. She wonders if Mr. Melville is still with them but does not look behind her. Her body is not capable of that kind of movement, and even if she could make it move she does not think she would have the courage to do so.

  She hears a whisper in her ear. The voice of
the man no longer here. The Other.

  ʺI look forward to your despair, my dear Katherine. And not even the shell you have created will protect you.ʺ

  Inexplicably, her crippled body manages to shudder. She does not cry, but a tear escapes the one eye that still occasionally sees into reality.

  HOLY ROLLER

  From: X

  To: Dicky

  Sent: Friday, May 31 3:35 AM

  Subject: Update on current carrier

  The new asset has accepted our assignment. He should arrive shortly.

  The others on the scene are reporting decisive action and a fair amount of collateral damage.

  This is going to be fun.

  ***

  Serafina saw the man who appeared like a demon when they turned on the headlights, but she wasnʹt focused on him. Mostly she saw the gun in his hand.

  She didnʹt like guns. She never had. Especially not since what happened to–

  A hand slammed into the back of her head, jamming her forward in her seat.

  ʺDown!ʺ screamed John.

  Her head went low as a shot tore the night apart. Glass showered her. Then the squeal of tires on asphalt, and a moment later a hollow thud that reminded her oddly of picking out ripe watermelons at the supermarket.

  She looked up and saw the gunman splayed across the hood of the BMW. His arm was punched through a hole in the spider webs that had somehow replaced the front windshield, and his gun waved around in tight circles, pinned partially in place by Johnʹs hand as he tried simultaneously to keep the gunman from shooting either of them and to steer.

  The car hit something–a parking curb?–and leaped into the air. The edges of the windshield ground audibly into the gunmanʹs arm, and he shouted. Blood welled around his arm, but he didnʹt let go of the gun. He didnʹt fire, either. Waiting for a good shot.

  Serafina shrank down into the leg space as much as she could. A tight fit, and she thanked Heaven for her tiny frame. Not so great when intimidating an uppity patient, but useful for this. She managed to flip herself around, and just as the gun was swinging to the side, in the instant before it hit pointed at Johnʹs face, she kicked up.

  A crack. Not the deafening report of a gun, but the brittle stick sound of a compound fracture.

  The gunman screamed, and finally let go of the gun. It fell to the space beside her.

  The gunman fell off the car with a scream that ended as he hit the pavement and rolled away behind them.

  Serafina righted herself–twice as awkward and difficult a process as dropping into the foot space in the first place had been–and then leaned down and picked up the gun. It felt like a dangerous animal in her hand. Warm from the killerʹs grip, lending it a sense of malignant life.

  She handed it over to John.

  He put it in his lap with a nod. ʺThanks,ʺ he said. She didnʹt know if he was talking about the gun or the kick.

  She nodded back. ʺWelcome.ʺ

  They were weaving between lines of cars in the parking lot. About to leave the lot, then they could turn onto a side street, then onto a larger avenue.

  Where then? She had no idea.

  A flurry of gunfire shredded her thoughts. She ducked automatically. One of the bullets plunked through the seat between her and John and then buried itself in the in-dash CD player.

  I hope the owner had insurance.

  Did insurance companies even have policies for things like this? How would you make a claim for assassination-related firefights in a hospital parking lot?

  The car swung into the hospital entrance. An ambulance was pulling in at the same time, and John got an angry blow of the horn for taking an overly wide turn. He didnʹt seem to care. Neither did Serafina.

  They turned out of the parking lot, wound around the ambulance.

  Five hundred feet to the larger avenue.

  ʺWhere now?ʺ she asked.

  His face tensed. She saw a muscle on his temple bounce as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. She rather expected he would tell her they had to go to ground, or that he had a secret safehouse or something like that.

  He finally answered. ʺLebanon.ʺ

  ʺWhat?ʺ The word didnʹt adequately express her shock, but she couldnʹt think of another one so she settled for repetition in lieu of creativity: ʺWhat?ʺ Had she thrown in with the wrong side here? ʺWhat are you, a terrorist or something?ʺ

  His head snapped to the side, his eyes finding hers. ʺNo. Not Lebanon in the middle-east. Lebanon, Kansas.ʺ

  That surprised her more. ʺLebanon, Kansas? Thereʹs a Lebanon in Kansas? Whatʹs in Kansas?ʺ

  John opened his mouth to answer. Or maybe to ask her to repeat her barrage of questions.

  A car hit them.

  Serafina flew to the side, slamming into John with bone-bruising force. Then she flew back the other direction, and only the side airbags kept her from ending up back at the hospital they had just left.

  She bounced off them, felt the BMW still spinning on its center axis as something shoved them to the side and back at the same time. The world turned in front of her, the view partially obscured by the dash airbags, which had also deployed.

  Still, she could see over them.

  A black sedan had slammed into them. Her training took over and she automatically wondered how the other person was doing, if the driver had been intoxicated, a thousand questions that would need to be answered by the triage nurse at the ER.

  The BMW continued sliding sideways. They turned completely around. The other car was now beside them, slightly in front, the BMW still being pushed, now backwards.

  She saw the driver of the other car.

  It was a big man, black and handsome. He didnʹt look dazed at all, didnʹt even look surprised. Maybe that was a function of his profession: he wore a Roman collar, the white strip clearly visible over the top of a black collaret.

  A priest.

  The priest pushed something forward. Dark. Familiar.

  A gun.

  A gun?

  What the hell is a priest doing with a gun?

  Shots fired. They were loud, so loud so loud so loud so loud! Serafina screamed and put her hands over her ears, then realized that she had not heard shots fired by the priest but by John. A tight clump of holes appeared in what remained of their windshield, a matching grouping in the safety glass of the black sedan.

  The priest dove sideways and disappeared below the level of the dash.

  Then John adjusted his aim downward and pulled the trigger again. Both dash airbags more or less disintegrated and he batted the tatters of his out of the way, giving himself free access to the wheel.

  He cranked it to the side. The cars disengaged with a shriek of metal on metal. He accelerated past the black sedan.

  She looked over. The other carʹs side windows were tinted. She couldnʹt see in.

  Instinct screamed at her. She ducked. Saw John was doing the same.

  Shots blew through the side window. Glass rained again.

  Gonna have a tough time next time I wash my hair.

  John stayed down, but their car didnʹt swerve. It remained steady as if a professional driver had been driving on an easy straightaway.

  She heard the black sedan screech to a halt behind them. Knew it would be turning around.

  She wondered what kind of priest took shooting lessons and courses in advanced stunt driving.

  A holy roller. Hyuk.

  She had become victim of the bad punchline to a deadly cosmic joke.

  The BMW lurched slightly as the gears shifted and its speed increased. John lifted his head just enough to look through the gap between the top of the dash and the upper arc of the steering wheel.

  Serafina stayed down. She edged over enough to see the side mirror. Headlights glowed behind them: the priest had spun the car around in record time and was already after them.

  More shots. Too many. She wasnʹt a gun expert–she knew which end the bullet came out of
, and that pulling the trigger while looking in the hole was a bad idea, but not a lot more–but she knew they did run out of bullets eventually.

  The priest must be reloading. While simultaneously pulling his car into and then out of a mad spin and then accelerating after them.

  She had wondered who John was and how he could be alive.

  Now she wondered who this priest was and if they had any chance of staying that way.

  John cranked the wheel to one side. The right wheels left the ground for a split second. She screamed, just a short yip, but was embarrassed for some reason.

  ʺSorry,ʺ he grunted.

  ʺItʹs okay,ʺ she said. And that was a ridiculous exchange. In the middle of a life-and-death race down the middle of a Los Angeles street, madmen trying to shoot them…but thatʹs no reason to be rude!

  They swerved again. John took turn after turn, trying to lose the black sedan.

  Even in the predawn hours, the streets were littered with men and women who believed the sun was a buzzkill. One of them was an exception–a man ringing a bell and wearing a sandwich board that loudly proclaimed ʺThe End Is NYE!ʺ in handwritten letters.

  Serafina hoped that wasnʹt an omen. Surely a guy preaching to people who didnʹt care a whit for his message–and one that was misspelled to boot–couldnʹt be right. And it couldnʹt apply to her, could it?

  They passed a pair of transvestites, a group of college students, a man clutching his stomach in the classic pre-barf pose.

  They turned, they turned.

  The sedan kept following them.

  Part of the problem was the people. Everyone they followed turned a head. Watching the mad flight in the middle of the night. The priest didnʹt really have to follow them, she realized. He could just follow the people who were staring down the road and be reasonably assured of finding them.