The Dark

by Jason Brant

  As far as he knew, the two of them were the only survivors left.

  “Stupid conscience.”

  He lowered the .38, popping the cylinder open out of curiosity.

  The gun hadn’t even been loaded.

  “Goddamn shit.”

  He rummaged through the drawer, trying to find bullets. What the hell good did it do to have an unloaded gun? What had Melissa planned on doing, throwing the pistol at an intruder? He’d taught her better than that.

  “Walt, come up here.”

  “I’m a little busy right now.”

  Busy doing what? Trying to prove to himself that Melissa didn’t leave herself unprotected? It didn’t do her any good in the end anyway. He tried to accept that there was nothing he could have done, but it didn’t help at all.

  “Come up here now! I think I see a light!”

  Walter hesitated. He would have to wait a little while longer before he could attend his family reunion.

  He huffed, shoulders sagging.

  “Coming.”

  He tossed the gun into the drawer and headed back to the hallway, willing himself not to look at any of the family portraits lining the walls.

  Christy stood by a large window in the living room. “She’s not here?”

  “She’s gone,” the words wavered as they came out.

  Christy’s face sank. She hugged him in the middle of the living room, holding him to her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Knowing that his time left on Earth was limited helped Walter keep his composure. He fought back sobs, but the effort proved less than he expected. This young woman needed his help and he would give it. He would accompany her until they found safety of some sort.

  Then he would find a suitable means of retiring himself.

  “You said you saw a light.” His tone remained steady this time.

  Christy held him at arm’s length, regarding him with watery eyes. She took in his gruff appearance and gave him a slow nod, as if she understood his need to internalize the grief.

  “Yeah,” she said, releasing him. She turned back to the window and pointed at the nothing beyond. “It’s way out there – several hundred yards, maybe more. It’s hard to judge the distance without anything in the foreground.”

  Walter followed her gaze.

  A small point of light stood out amongst the blanket of black before them. It appeared to be far away, but close enough to walk to.

  “Do you see it?”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  Walter stared at it for another moment before responding. “I think it’s on a porch, or maybe a garage light. Someone might have a generator running.”

  “Would that mean they’re alive?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes there is a delay from when the power goes out until a generator kicks on. They could be gone, but their house might have electricity.”

  “But we should go see, right? I have to know what’s going on.”

  Walter considered the tiny bright spot. Perhaps he could find a gun there.

  “Yeah, we need to take a look.”

  Chapter 10

  “Are you one of them?”

  Aaron didn’t know how to answer that. He couldn’t get past the gun pointed at his forehead.

  “Are you one of them?” The woman’s pitch rose and would soon hit levels that only a dog could hear.

  “No! We aren’t!” Stephanie put her hands up, as if the police were placing her under arrest. “We’re regular people.”

  “Yeah! We’re normal!” Aaron wasn’t sure what that meant, but he agreed with it anyway.

  The stocky woman’s eyes shifted back and forth. “How can I tell? How can I trust you?”

  “We’re standing in the light,” Stephanie said, her voice soft, coaxing. “They’re afraid of the light.”

  The gun shook in the woman’s hand.

  “We just came here because the lights are on,” Aaron said. “No one else has any power.”

  He took in the woman’s attire. She wore stained, faded jeans and a yellowing, formerly white shirt – hardly the uniform of an officer. Her frazzled brown hair stuck out in several directions, as if she’d recently gotten out of bed.

  She slowly lowered the gun, warily eyeing Aaron and Stephanie.

  “Is everyone gone?” she asked after several seconds.

  “You’re the only person we’ve seen,” Aaron said. He didn’t want to mention the appearance of their parents, afraid of getting this woman too worked up.

  The woman took a deep breath and stared down at the ground.

  “What is going on? Where are you coming from?”

  “We don’t know,” Stephanie said.

  “I was delivering pizza to her house when the power went out. We were standing in the doorway and my headlights were on us. And then... everyone was gone.”

  The woman nodded her head as if that made total sense. None of it even seemed real to Aaron.

  “I sat in the lobby here, waiting to be questioned by a detective. I was texting someone on my iPhone when the power went out. My screen is really bright, and it kept me from being in total darkness.”

  Aaron scratched his head. So far only three of them had survived the initial incident, and it had been by blind stinking luck. Learning this didn’t give him a warm and fuzzy feeling. Relying on blind luck wasn’t a plan that kept you safe for very long.

  That and he still didn’t want to face the reality that his friends and family might be gone.

  “The place went dead silent. I mean completely fucking quiet.” The woman spoke faster, her words slipping together. “I stood up, trying to see through the lobby, wondering what the hell was going, but I couldn’t make out shit. Then I heard this rumbling from somewhere in the back of the building and the lights flickered back on. The place was totally empty. I mean no one was around, ya know? There must have been ten or twelve people right there, that I could see, before the lights went out, and they were just... gone. Gone!”

  She paused, her chest hitching as she sucked in air.

  Aaron didn’t like the manic nature of this woman. She seemed on edge, which would have been perfectly acceptable given their circumstances, but her behavior was borderline violent. Her eyes had a crazy quality to them, like she could snap at any moment.

  And she had a few red splotches on her shirt that Aaron just noticed.

  Please let that be ketchup.

  “Where did they go?” she asked Stephanie, pleading with her.

  “We don’t know.” Stephanie gave Aaron a quick glance before looking back at the woman. “Have you seen anyone since then? Is that why you were asking us if we were one of them?”

  “Yeah. My sister. She asked me to walk out in the street, away from the light.”

  Aaron found himself nodding his head. “We saw our parents.”

  “How did you get away from them?” the woman asked.

  “They’re afraid of the light.” Aaron pointed at the flashlight in Stephanie’s hands.

  “I shot the bitch,” the woman blurted.

  She tried to shoot her own sister? And she called her a bitch?

  “Did it do anything?” Stephanie asked.

  “She smiled at me. Then she stepped around the corner and fucking disappeared!”

  Aaron didn’t think that they were safe staying around this woman. They’d come to the police station to get help and she definitely wasn’t that. She said that she’d been asked in for questioning, but they had no idea if that was the truth. Even if it was, what detective was bringing people into the station at the middle of the night? It had to be for something serious.

  “There’s no one else here at all? No police officers?” he asked.

  “Did I stutter?” Her demeanor changed, her brow furrowing, yellow teeth bared.

  From the corner of his eye, Aaron saw Stephanie squeeze the handle of the large flashlight. He hoped that she was ready to swing it if necessary.

&
nbsp; “I’m sorry; we’re just really freaked out.” Aaron kept his eyes on the gun she gripped down by her hip. “We were hoping that someone could help us out with our parents.”

  “There ain’t no help out there. Can’t you see what’s going on here? We’re in Hell.”

  Oh shit.

  In Aaron’s limited life experience things usually went downhill when people started ‘going religious’, as his father called it. They needed cooler heads to prevail and thinking that they were in Hell wasn’t going to keep everyone calm.

  “Everything is going to be OK,” Aaron said.

  “The hell it is! Look at this!” She waved the gun around, pointing at the dark.

  Aaron took a step backward, working his way to his car.

  “Where are you going?” She raised the pistol again, pointing it in his direction.

  “We just came here looking for the police,” he said, raising his hands to show that he was no danger to her. “Since they’re not here, we’re going to try and get out of this.”

  “No way.”

  Stephanie stood in place, her knees shaking. “We’ll bring help back for you.”

  Though Aaron couldn’t see her face, he knew Stephanie had started crying again.

  “You aren’t going anywhere. You stay here with me, in the light, where we’ll be safe.”

  “But—”

  “Shut the fuck up and get inside.” She leveled the pistol at Stephanie’s head. “I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

  Aaron figured that when someone points a gun at you and promises they’ll keep you safe, you know you’re screwed. From the moment she came outside she’d been irrational. Now she was preparing to take them hostage. But to what end?

  Out of the frying pan and into the fryer.

  The woman motioned to the front door with the gun, stepping aside so they could walk past. Stephanie got moving, her legs awkwardly stiff, fear skewing her gait. Aaron followed her, keeping his hands visible so the woman wouldn’t shoot him in the back.

  The police station was eerily silent.

  Desks filled the room, some facing each other. Paperwork covered everything, scattered about in haphazard fashion. The overhead lights put off a soft glow, running at less than full brightness. The generator must not have had enough horsepower to give the station all of the juice it needed.

  “Keep walking – take a seat in the back.”

  Aaron stepped beside Stephanie, putting a tentative arm around her back. She jumped at his touch. They locked gazes for a moment, the terror of the situation passing wordlessly between them.

  “Sit here.”

  They dropped into hard wooden seats in front of a desk. A nameplate sat in the middle of the paper-covered desk with the name “Walden” on it. Two children, each younger than five, and a pretty brunette were in a picture to the right.

  The crazy woman sat in a large leather chair opposite Aaron and Stephanie.

  “What are your names?”

  “Steve and Megan,” Aaron said.

  Stephanie grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  Why do I have to bond with her now, of all times?

  “We’re going to sit here, Steve and Megan, and wait this thing out.”

  “Wouldn’t it be smarter to go try—”

  “No!” She slammed her fist on the desk. “Listen to me! It’s death out there! This is our sanctuary. Is it any wonder that the lone light source in the midst of Hell is a police station? I think not. Is it any wonder that light saves you? No. Follow the light, follow safety, follow God and survive the night!”

  Aaron had no idea what any of that meant. This woman became more unhinged by the minute. Unless hell started with a power outage, he was pretty certain that they weren’t dead yet. Those that had disappeared could be, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions with what little knowledge he had.

  Stephanie squeezed his hand so hard that he winced.

  “Are you a God-fearing man, Steve?”

  “Uhh... yes?”

  The woman’s face scrunched.

  “I mean, yes!” The last thing he needed to do was piss off the psychopath.

  Aaron hadn’t been to church since he’d turned ten, but he’d be damned if he would tell her that.

  “Megan?”

  “Oh yes, I go to church, yes ma’am.”

  The lights flickered overhead.

  Psycho didn’t notice. Didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  Aaron opened his mouth, closed it. He feared interrupting her, possibly pissing her off.

  He raised his hand like he did in his social studies class.

  “Yes, Steve?”

  “Have you checked the generator?”

  “Why would I check the generator?”

  Aaron didn’t know much about generators, electricity, or anything of the nature. He did know that they ran on gasoline though. That felt like an important tidbit of information.

  “Well, what if it runs out of gas?”

  The lights flickered again. She didn’t react. Her mind must have seriously cracked.

  “Can that happen?”

  “I think so. If it does, we’ll be in the dark.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can Megan and I go check it out?”

  “Do I look stupid to you, boy? You think I’m going to let you run off and get killed out there?” Her head twitched sideways. The movement was quick and small, but very noticeable.

  “We don’t want—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Ok.”

  “The Lord will give us all of the gas we need. You have faith, don’t you?”

  Aaron’s stomach constricted. If they didn’t get out of here soon, either the lights would go out or this lunatic would shoot them. Coming here had been a bad idea. The potential loss of his parents, the darkness outside, and the psychopath before him were all too much. He was a sixteen-year-old kid for crying out loud. Worrying about his homework and pimples should be the biggest stressors of his life.

  The woman twitched again. “I asked you if—”

  “We both have faith. Loads and loads of faith, that’s us,” Stephanie said quickly. “I’m Jesus’ right-hand man. Woman. Shit.”

  Stephanie’s hand trembled in his. He admired her ability to keep fear from creeping into her voice.

  “Yeah, Jesus and I are buds. Same with Aa... Steve... ” She caught herself, giving Aaron a quick sideways glance. “How do you think we survived but everyone else is gone?”

  “Well, I guess—”

  “But you know what they say. The Lord helps those who help themselves. We need to help ourselves by looking at the generator. You can come with us – you probably know more about it than we do anyway.”

  Aaron turned toward the stunning Stephanie, not even trying to hide his awe. She had just manipulated the ever living shit out of a crazy woman. Beautiful and smart – a truly deadly combination. Aaron wondered if it was too soon to ask for her hand in marriage.

  The woman’s head bobbed up and down as she thought through Stephanie’s words.

  Aaron pretended he could see smoke coming from her ears. He hoped that the work required to think caused her pain.

  “All right, let’s take a look.” She raised the pistol again, swinging it toward Stephanie. “But if you try anything funny, I’ll have to give you over to them.”

  “We just want the lights to stay on.”

  Rising from her chair, gun in hand, the woman motioned for them to go toward a door at the back of the room. Aaron went first, walking with tentative steps, afraid of stumbling into an area that was too dark. Stephanie came behind him, a handful of his shirt scrunched between her fingers.

  Psycho took the rear, mumbling scripture and no doubt twitching.

  They walked past a row of cells on either side of the next hallway – all of them empty. The creepy silence sent a chill through Aaron. An exit sign hung above the next door. Another sign sat in the middle, warning everyone not to go through the doo
r unless it was an emergency. Aaron stopped before it, looking back at Stephanie, trying to communicate without words.

  If they were to survive the night, they had to get away from this woman. Ditching her outside of the building would probably be their best bet, but he couldn’t pull anything off without Stephanie being on board.

  She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. Whether that meant she understood, or she just wanted him to go check the generator, he didn’t know.

  “Hurry up. I don’t want to be out there any longer than necessary,” Psycho said.

  Aaron peered over Stephanie’s shoulder at the woman in time to see her nervous tic rear its ugly head again. He tried not to shudder.

  He pushed against the metal bar that ran across its width, unlocking the door and setting off a blaring alarm. The whooping emergency sound came from directly overhead, stabbing at their ears, making it impossible to hear each other.

  They stepped outside, the wail from the alarm lessening as they moved through the doorway. Aaron stopped, holding the door open with his foot, grabbing Stephanie’s arm as she walked by.

  The generator was off to their left, chugging along, small plumes of discolored smoke coming from its exhaust.

  “There it is,” he said, pointing in its general direction.

  Psycho took one step past them when Aaron shoved her in the back.

  She stumbled forward, cursing the name Steve as she tripped over an extension cord stretching across the back lot. The pistol broke from her grasp, sliding on the pavement.

  Aaron jerked Stephanie back through the emergency exit, slamming the door shut. He caught a glimpse of Psycho rolling over, reaching for the gun.

  “Get down!”

  He pushed Stephanie away, trying to get her moving down the hallway.

  A security bolt was screwed into the top of the door. He pushed it into place, locking the exit from the inside.

  The bark of gunfire came from the other side of the door. Small holes punctured the metal beside Aaron.

  “Run!”

  They fled down the hall, zipping past the empty cells.

  Stabbing pain bit at Aaron’s left side. His leg went numb in an instant.

  Gritting his teeth through the agony, Aaron stayed on Stephanie’s heel, working their way back to the office area.