Into Darkness (The Guardian Book 2)

by Jason Davis

  Rob didn't think he would ever get all the answers, but he was starting to piece together some of it. Some came from what the witch had said and done. She came to the town for power. She knew the thing was here, which meant she probably tried to capture it, but something happened. Something like maybe the chief discovering her? His body was the one inconsistency. It would make sense if she got caught, then killed him, having to wait to try the spell again later. Maybe she had awakened it...

  So how was Mikey involved? Maybe he hadn't called out to it. Maybe he had been dropped to it. The grate covering the entrance in what was Bobby's spot, and Bobby was said to be abusive toward his younger brother. Could he have done something? Pushed him down here or something? Maybe this creature found him...but what then?

  Maybe it fed off his revenge as much as it fed off the bodies. Who knew how it worked. What the thing hadn't planned on was that no matter how tortured this young soul was, he still had a sister. Someone out there who had protected him. A sister he still loved.

  Rob knew he made a lot of assumptions with his theory and there were still a lot of holes, but his gut told him he was right.

  “Like a puppet on a string, the children sing. They do a little prance before they start to dance.”

  A children’s rhyme, something he had heard long ago. He wasn’t sure if it was one he read in a book or if another kid used to sing it in school. It felt childish and distant, another memory that felt more like a dream.

  Much of his life felt like a dream lately. It was sometimes hard to tell distant memories from distant thoughts and daydreams. Maybe that was a side effect of these things getting into his head and playing around in there, or maybe he was just getting old.

  He took another side step, then another. He could only watch as the little boy reached out to Ally and she lowered herself to him.

  Rob couldn’t let him touch her. Something screamed that if she did, he would have her, no matter what the little boy wanted. The thing that controlled him, his puppet master, would take her.

  Something needed to change. There had to be a way to see through the darkness to find the creature pulling the strings. Rob wasn't going to accept that it was formless. If it had no form, it couldn't exist on this plane of existence.

  "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take," Rob said aloud. It wasn't the best thing he could say, but it was all he could think of. A childhood prayer. He and Jake said it nearly every night, both of them on their knees as they prayed.

  Jake and Robyn… He believed in their love so much. He wanted nothing more than to see them and hold them again. He believed in his love for them, wanting to have at least one more opportunity to tell them.

  When Rob opened his eyes, he could see it just behind the boy. At first, Rob saw the dark man he had seen before, that toothy smile stretching from ear to ear, but then that shell was gone and Rob saw something else.

  It stood tall, hunched over and gangly, its limbs long and multi-jointed. It didn’t have skin, but had what looked like an insect’s shell, the joints interlocking. Two long claws stretched high above the boy, coming together in a long body. It had many legs, but Rob wasn’t going to count them. He didn’t want to know. It was too large and too hideous. He had to close his eyes so he wouldn’t see too much of it. The sight caused the pain in his temples to squeal with a new level of agony.

  He kept his eyes shut, counting to ten, then fifty. He hadn’t seen it. He had seen only the man. There wasn’t that other thing.

  Then he opened his eyes, seeing the man standing over the boy. He held his hands up, string running down, controlling the boy’s movements.

  It was what Rob wanted to see because it was what his mind could handle. In his heart, he knew it was just another shell, another mirage to hide the hideous beast. In order for him to face it, he had to see it for what it was and fight the darkness around him, as well as the darkness inside himself. He had to be the man he was meant to be. He had to become something more than what he was now.

  He had to believe, but didn't know if he could.

  Lord, give me strength.

  He heard a prayer in his head and repeated the words. "And Jesus cried out and said, ‘Whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in Him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees Him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.’"

  He felt a warmth swathe him in comfort as he opened his eyes. He saw the thing in its horrid state, controlling the boy as the boy prepared to reach out to his sister. The darkness that had been coming for Rob had backed away to form a circle of light around him. He was afraid, but the fear had lost its power over him.

  He remembered another prayer and, with force behind his voice, recited what he remembered. "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me..."

  He could feel something happening as he spoke the words. What was the rest of the prayer? He didn’t think he was remembering it correctly. How did it go? It was in his memories, just past the fog of darkness. He felt the fog lifting against his pressure.

  "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  The gun went off, startling him. Rob didn’t remember drawing it, aiming it, or firing it. The sound of the shot woke him from some far away dream, painfully bringing him back to the present.

  The thing rocked back as Rob’s shot struck home.

  The cloud in Rob’s mind lifted more. He had the sudden sensation of being quickly pulled from consciousness without slowly attuning himself to reality. He faltered, the world around him seeming to grow unsteady as it rocked back and forth.

  He saw the creature again as it withdrew from the child. It fell back, unsteady, its multi-jointed legs nearly collapsing. They would start to give out, then it would catch itself for a brief second before it started falling again. Rob watched as it pulled itself deeper into the tunnel and away from them. The farther it moved, it recovered its speed, still shifting erratically. It spun around quickly, as though it weren’t too sure of what was happening.

  Rob started falling, but didn’t know why. He had lost control, his legs not supporting him. They no longer understood how to hold him up. Pain shot through his chest as his heart struggled to keep a steady beat and his arms felt weak. He heard the gun as it fell to the ground.

  The creature regained its balance and turned to glare at Rob. He could feel its anger. He couldn’t see the eyes, but he felt the fire and knew it watched him.

  It moved toward him, dropping onto all its legs, the claws outstretched. Rob watched as it approached, but he couldn’t move. There was nothing he could do about it as he fell back. It felt like it took forever, like the world around him was just slowly moving to meet him.

  Then the thing stood over him, hovering. Rob could see the claws and what he had thought was string. It looked like there were little free-floating tentacles reaching toward him.

  No way. I’m not going to be next.

  It felt like it was all part of a dream. None of this was real. He wasn’t afraid. How could he be? He was still falling.

  Then Rob felt a searing pain in his chest. It burned through his skin and his shirt. He saw a bright light suddenly fill the space, pushing away the darkness. He saw the room, the creature, all the bodies.

  “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. My God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield
, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord; to my God, I cried for help. From his temple, he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

  Rob heard himself as he shouted the words. He knew it as a verse, but not one he recognized. It seemed foreign to him, and he wasn’t sure why or how he was able to scream it through his haze.

  The creature stopped and stayed there, hovering over him.

  The gun fired again, then another, and another. Had one of the kids picked it up? He would need to thank them later…if he lived through this.

  The pain just kept burning him as the gun kept firing. He thought the clip should have been empty by now.

  He should have been dead.

  Then everything went black.

  * * * *

  He opened his eyes. Although the room was dark, it wasn’t unnatural. He could see a faint glow not too far away.

  “Michael,” he heard a girl cry.

  “You have to let him go. He’s gone.”

  “No.”

  “Ally, you really have to. We need to get out of here. We need to check on the deputy.”

  “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Ally, he died a long time ago. That can’t really be him.”

  “David, I don’t care.”

  “Ally.”

  “David.”

  Rob drifted into his own darkness, the world slipping away from him.

  CHAPTER 33

  Rob woke up, blinded by the bright sun overhead. It was not just bright. The light was loud around him, screaming its intensity. He had to lift his arm to shield his eyes.

  “He’s awake!”

  Rob turned his head to see David and Ally sitting on a fallen tree. David got up. Rob tried to give him a simple nod of acknowledgment, but the pain shooting through him told him he wasn’t going to be moving his head too much in the near future.

  “Yeah.” His voice was dry and raspy. “We’re out?”

  “We’ve been out nearly an hour. We thought about going to your car to try and call for help, but neither of us wanted to leave the other alone.”

  “Yeah, I gotcha.” And he did. He was already having a hard time remembering things, but what he did remember was something to fill nightmares. Tentacles and spider-like creatures hovering over him, darkness trying to grab him, a fire burning him. He was sure his old nightmares would try to intrude on all the new ones. In some ways, he wished one of his demons would just start killing off some of the other ones.

  He looked at the kids hovering over him. They looked rough. Ally’s eyes were red and puffy from crying. David looked ragged, his hair matted with dirt and debris, although he actually seemed a little taller than the kid he had met yesterday. Had it really only been yesterday, or was there another day in there somewhere that he just couldn’t remember? Funny how hard it was to remember time, or anything else, over the last few days.

  But David definitely looked like he stood taller. He hunched over Rob, checking him out. It looked like he had more confidence, his back straighter. The kid had been through a lot, but he seemed to be taking it well. He was a fighter. Rob liked that.

  Ally was a fighter, too. She’d probably show more of it had she not faced down her little brother. The biggest, strongest of men would all weep when it came down to the person they loved the most being lost to them. Ally couldn’t be asked to be stronger than she had already been.

  “So how’d we get out?” Rob ground out.

  The kids both looked at each other, then back at him.

  “You got us out,” David said. “After you kept shooting at that thing, it ran off to die in the tunnel. Then you started yelling for us to follow you out.”

  Rob glared at David, but he didn’t see any sign that the kid was lying. Why would he? There wasn’t any reason to. Rob had been the one to save them, to shoot the thing, but he didn’t remember any of it.

  “You got us up here, covered up the hole, and then you just passed out,“ Ally said. She tried to hold in the sniffle, but looked back at the grate, letting out a fresh sob.

  Rob turned over and looked at the grate. He stood slowly and walked over to it, pulling it back.

  Underneath it was dirt. The hole was gone.

  He put the grate back, more confused now than he ever was.

  EPILOGUE

  In the last week, Rob had been left with more questions than answers. Everything went down last Friday. They had gone up there to find answers and save lives, but had come back with nothing but questions.

  The question Rob had the hardest time dealing with was what did he tell the families. Allison was the lone survivor, but there had been other missing people. Rob felt they had the right to know that they would never see their loved one again. If they did, they should run away.

  Rob was sure the thing down there wasn't dead. It had been alive for a long time. He doubted that shooting it or “praying” would make it disappear for eternity. It was gone for now, though. He wasn't sure if he needed to know more than that at the moment.

  He was now the full-time police chief of Standard. It was a big position in a small town. The pay sucked for how many hours he put in, but it was enough to support his family. He figured that would be enough for him, although the new position had some issues when the state police and the medical examiners had never been heard from again. Rob didn't think they ever would be, even though they hadn't seen the bodies down below. He had a feeling they were definitely down there, but somewhere they hadn't seen.

  When more state guys showed up to investigate their missing officers, Rob had been under an intense scrutiny, but he knew they wouldn't find anything to trace him to the disappearances. He agreed it was suspicious, but as he told them, all the officers were gone by the time he went up there.

  Eventually, they backed off, although he doubted any future calls for help to the state troopers would be ignored.

  Out of sight, out of mind. It was easy with the state guys because he didn't have to deal with them every day. The parents in town were different.

  Joey's dad had become a regular at the bars since his wife and son were taken from his home. He had been home and hadn’t seen anything. Other than Rob, no one in town believed him, but what could Rob tell him. The man was already on the brink of sanity and sobriety. Anything he said would only make it worse.

  There was a pattern to the missing. Some Rob knew for sure, and some he could only guess at. Many had been bullies, picking on Mikey directly. Rob couldn't be sure about the others, but as the darkness grew hungrier, it might have pushed to target bullies and those who enabled them. That kid Joey… His mother definitely struck Rob as being an enabler.

  Then there had been the pastor. Rob had his own theories about the guy, and they weren’t pleasant. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him being up to dirty deeds. What they had been and what went on in that church, Rob didn’t want to know. He just knew it wouldn’t happen anymore.

  Not that there weren’t rumors spreading already. It was a small town, the local gossips doing their fair share of spreading all kinds of dirt. Some of it might have actually been true. The café boomed, having nearly a fifteen minute wait just to get a coffee at the counter. While Rob wasn’t a frequent visitor, he knew it was definitely busier than usual, which meant everyone was trying to find out what happened.

  Mr. Jenkins, who had run the grocery store in town until he retired, had asked Rob when he was going to track down the pastor and lock him up because he had to have been who kidnapped and killed all those kids. By now, most everyone had given up hope they would find the children alive. People were now angry, vowing revenge.

  Maybe it was a good thing the pastor would never be found. If the town believed it was him, they wouldn’t go on a witch hunt
for someone else. That might just have saved an innocent life or two.

  And the witch… Rob had been sure she was dead, but when he returned to the flower shop, she was gone. It was closed, empty. There was only a shell of what had been there earlier in the day, and where the witch had fallen was a spot of missing carpet. Even her blood hadn’t been left behind.

  She was gone, the evil she started was gone, and Rob doubted he would ever see her again. For that, he was thankful.

  * * * *

  Rob stepped into the church. He had put off coming here for weeks since the incident, not sure what he was going to say to the priest. The large wooden doors closed behind him as he stood in the small vestibule. In front of him, the doors for the chapel were open. He stepped into the long, high-ceilinged room.

  The large stained glass windows immediately drew his attention. The images moved subtly. There was one that depicted a demon, shrouded in darkness, being driven back by an angel with a large sword. Another depicted Jesus standing over a soldier who knelt in front of him. Jesus was reaching down, placing his hand on the soldier’s shoulder.

  He walked a little farther down the outer aisle. The place was quiet, and he found the silence soothing after the noise of the last few weeks. So much craziness had gone on, people asking questions he wasn’t sure how to answer. Was it over? He didn’t know, but everyone wasn’t content with that or any of his other answers.

  They thought he was lying, but he knew there was no way he could ever tell anyone the truth. Not unless he wanted to find himself in a padded room somewhere, sitting alone in a straitjacket.

  Where were the missing kids? Why couldn’t anyone find the bodies? What happened to the county police, the CSI crew, all those people? What happened to the chief?