Deeper into Darkness

by Maria Ann Green

  And my skin, it’s like it’s doubled, because I can feel every pebble in the asphalt below me, every molecule in the air that brushes against me in the breeze. I can feel every slam of my heart against the inside of my chest, trying to break free and get away from this night, from this monster, from this abandoned alley behind the bar. Just get away.

  He bends farther, just inches from my face with his own, looming over me. I can see every hair sprouting from his cheeks and his chin in the scruff growing there. I focus on it, because it’s better than focusing on the alternative.

  He has a knife in his hand. A really, really big knife, sharp. I don’t know where it came from, or when he got it ready, but there it is screaming at me from his hand. There it is staring me dead in the face.

  “I bet you taste good,” he says, rotting words coming from his chapped lips.

  I finally let out a delayed but ear-piercing scream.

  It comes from between his fingers, which are cutting way too much of it off, holding me back and closer to what he wants. He doesn’t pause with my yelling, the bit that broke out into the air. Instead he lunges at me, closing the distance and getting ready to put his body onto mine, ready to straddle me and move toward me knife-first. And I have no idea what to do.

  There’s a pause, where time stops and gives me one second, one chance, to get it right.

  Because there is a moment. He lifts his hand and no longer holds me down, in preparation to fully dominate me. I use it. It’s not elegant, and it’s not brilliant, but it’s something. I just roll out of the way, and in his shock he stutters, so I have time to stand.

  His knife hits the ground. It doesn't break, but the sound is horrible, metal scraping rock. It grates on my ears and sends nausea rippling through my entire body. I heave, stopping my movement for a second, but I recover. I have to.

  His hand hits the ground too, and it stops him for more than a second. I take the opportunity to run, but his bitter, harsh laughter booms too close behind me. I only get three steps away before he grabs my foot.

  How?

  It’s not fair. It just isn’t fair.

  The surprise of it leaves me without time to think. He yanks my ankle hard and twists it.

  The force pulls me backward enough to fall. Trying to catch myself, my hands fling forward, but in the midst of chaos I'm not coordinated enough to stop the inevitable. My face hits concrete. There's a crack that reverberates throughout my skull. I see hot white, then splotchy black.

  He fucking broke my nose. I probably have a concussion. And my ankle is sprained at best, if it isn’t broken from how hard he twisted it.

  I roll over to face my attacker. He won’t disappear if I don’t look at him. I know that. So I have to look. I have to look him in his eyes and face the monster. He’s crawling to me, not on top of me yet, but getting closer.

  “Why?” I scream it. It’s not loud, I still don’t have enough power behind the words, but I tried. I did my best.

  “Why not?”

  His smile is crooked, and his teeth are yellowing.

  I gag again.

  His detachment is the worst part about it, but not why you’d think. He couldn't care less about what happens to me, obviously. He wants to dominate, and take from me what he wants. That would be scary to someone else…but not me. I kill people. I take what I want, too. So that’s not what makes my heart pick up speed even more as he gets one move closer. It’s that he reminds me of Aidan. The detachment, the cold. It’s like watching Aidan on a playdate.

  That sparks my brain.

  Aidan.

  I need to figure this out, get out of this, for Aidan.

  I might have a concussion, my vision is still fuzzy, but I can do something. He’s close enough now, crouched and bringing his knife closer to my face, and I scratch him. I get my too-short nails into the sensitive skin of his face and tear.

  He yelps, screeching, and pulls back. The surprise gets him and he falls onto his own back. The thought of an overturned centipede flashes through my mind, and I almost laugh. It’s absurd, but the sound hovers in the back of my throat as hope crashes through me hard. Then he sits, and he smirks, and I'm left emptier than I've ever been before. I’m so hollow it’s hard to breathe.

  He’s back before I can even move. I blinked and he transported, or that’s how it feels. I swallow, and he places the point of the knife to the corner of my mouth. I taste blood as it leaks down both inside my lips and down my chin. It tastes like metal and panic.

  His other hand comes swinging out of nowhere, and I don’t see it until it’s too close to stop. His fist connects with my eye, and then in a quick movement it pulls back and slams into my chest.

  The wind leaves my lungs in a whoosh out my throat as it’s all knocked out of me, and I hit the ground again, this time with my back. Breath gone, I’m simultaneously seeing an explosion of stars.

  Busted nose, black eye, broken ankle—what else can I survive?

  But my brain doesn’t stop working; I’m looking around wildly and trying to find a way to help myself, to get out of this. But it’s like I can only see, can only think, in pieces. That isn’t enough.

  How the hell did this happen to me?

  I’m the hunter, not the hunted.

  I don’t know what does it, maybe his foul breath again, maybe the realization that I need to see Aidan again, but something. Something snaps me back into it, back into myself, and I do the one thing I can in this position, the one thing that I know will work.

  I send my knee into his crotch, and I send it hard.

  It hits, he moans in pain, and I almost cheer, but I don’t have the spare time.

  He falls over, and I stand. I kick him. I swing my leg back and send it into him as hard as I can. Except I misaim, and I kick him in his temple, sending his head flinging sideways. The air crackles, and then there’s a crunch, an awful crunch, as his head—the other temple—smashes into the corner of the dumpster in the alley. I hadn’t even realized we were near a dumpster in this whole chaotic mess.

  Then a second sound reverberates around me, this time duller, as the back of his head falls onto the ground, ricocheting off the metal it first hit.

  One, two, three, dead.

  I thought I was scared before.

  And, I mean, I was. I really was, obviously.

  Of course I was scared as I was being followed and then attacked. Of course I was terrified when a knife was pulled on me, and I was overpowered by a man. Of course my thoughts went to the end, to my not making it out of the situation alive. Of course.

  But if I thought I was scared before, it’s worse now. The panic that started in my toes is moving up to my pelvis, past my stomach, to my chest and my lungs, compressing everything along the way. I feel shorter and smaller after all that’s happened tonight.

  I feel like I can’t keep walking.

  Yet somehow I do.

  I wonder what I look like. I can feel the rips in my clothing, the scratches in my skin, the way my short hair is sticking up. I can only imagine the mess, bruised and broken in several places, but I don’t let it stop me. I can’t think about it too much.

  I didn’t think it was possible to be more terrified, but then here we are.

  I see the blood starting to trickle, starting to pool. I got the hell out of there.

  And that’s what I’m scared of. It’s not what happened, or almost happened, because in the end I’ve always protected myself, haven’t I? I think somewhere deep inside I knew I’d probably make it through, even if something bad happened first. I don’t think every part of me let go; somewhere deep inside my brain, I knew if it came down to me and him, I’d win like I always have so far.

  But what I left behind, that’s the scariest.

  A witness, a hair, my skin, who knows what all is left there while I run away, while I still run—knowing I should turn around but can’t force myself to. I’m too afraid, of it all, of every option. Running feels right, though. So I run. I run fro
m the alley to the front of the bar, to the street, which feels a little safer, though I’m not sure it is. At least there are neon signs and streetlights.

  I ignore the shadows they create with their light, and I keep moving.

  And if anything else, the attack sobered me up a little. I can see clearly; I can think clearly. There’s no fuzziness in my brain or around my vision anymore, which is good. But it’s not enough to get me totally out of this.

  Kicking off my other shoe, I keep moving, from the hard ground to the soft grass.

  All I know, and I know that it isn’t much but it will have to do, is that I can’t be here anymore. Bending down, I start looking for my phone.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  I don’t look back at the unconscious—dead—man. I don’t spare a single glance. I don’t have the time to waste, and even if I did I worry that it would paralyze me. I can’t afford that.

  You know, I think that’s what bugs me the most, the stupidity of it all. Moving was supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be a fresh start for us, a perfect blank slate. And…I guess it had been perfect. Everything had been so peaceful, until it wasn’t, until now, until tonight, until I opened my stupid, big mouth and said those stupid things to Aidan.

  Perfection wasn’t long enough, and I want more of it. I want it back.

  Now, with the luxury of hindsight, I have no idea why I ever felt like I’d been lying or hiding anything. It was just a part of my past that hadn’t come up yet, that hadn’t been picked apart. And, really, we haven’t talked all that much about our pasts, other than the bloody parts.

  Surely Aidan had visions of killing past ex-girlfriends. Surely I don’t know every single thing about him. So it was pointless, my having gone and ruined everything. It was stupid, and it was like I asked for this to happen to me, all of it tonight. The fight, the stranger coming for me. All of it. It was all stupid, and all my fault.

  My hands weave through the too-tall blades of grass, still looking for my phone, but it’s no use. I can’t stay here, and I’ve already spent too long looking, too long standing in one spot. No matter the reason, I can’t be near that very-likely-dying body anymore, so I give up. I’ll just get another new one.

  As his blood, the blood of my attacker, soaks into the shadows, I make my way to my car.

  And I drive.

  Without most of my purse, without my phone, with new cracks in my bones and new fears heavy on my mind, I start driving toward home. I can’t get there fast enough, and if feels like if it takes too long I might explode.

  But I don’t make it very far.

  I’m only a single block down from where I think I dropped my phone, from where I’d been speaking to Aidan—god, I wish I could talk to him again, just once more for just a second, to let him know I love him, and even if it’s not true anymore, hear him say it back just once more.

  I don’t make it very far because after less than the distance I could have run before needing a break, I see lights in my rearview mirror.

  Flashing lights.

  Everything electrifies inside me, and my organs are instantly liquid, liquid on fire. My eyes dart from the mirror to my hands to my dashboard, and back to the mirror. The movement is so quick it makes me nauseous. Though, it’s probably not the only thing making me nauseous, to be fair.

  Still unprepared, my brain still not moving forward yet, I hear it. There’s one whoop of the siren attached to those lights. Just one before it’s turned off again, leaving just the flashing back and forth between two menacing colors—the two colors sealing my fate.

  One sound.

  Two colors.

  I take a breath, one deep breath, with eyes closed.

  I can feel my skin getting hot, turning red.

  I wish I could turn it off, keep some ice in my veins, regulate myself better. But I can’t, and because I can’t, I get angrier every time. Hot everywhere and getting hotter, I close my eyes, trying to force it back. But I can feel the sweat starting to make its way to my pores.

  And my heart is running a marathon while I sit here in the driver’s seat.

  Somehow I get my arms to move, to turn my steering wheel and pull to the side of the road. The whole time my eyes are still darting, moving too fast for my mind to catch up with what I’m seeing. When I make it all the way to the shoulder, finally, the lights are still flashing—red, blue, red, blue, anger, depression, red, blue. My vision starts to go gray around the edges. But I will it, I will my body so hard, to go back into focus. I need to see straight to get through this.

  Those lights, that sound, they’re attached to a cop car.

  A cop.

  A cop is behind me.

  A cop.

  My eyes sting with how little I’m blinking, the ducts wanting to water the dry surfaces. I have to look, always, no time to blink. But there there’s a lump, clawing at my throat until it’s raw, until I’m sure there’s blood collecting there instead of tears. Though, still I don’t cry.

  Waiting, on the side of the road, the cop coming closer behind me, growing larger in my mirror, my mind races. I flit from thought to thought, bad conclusions turning to worst-case scenarios.

  My hands clench tighter, my knuckles so white they’re almost clear.

  If someone saw, how could it have been called in so quickly? A drop of something cold trickles down each vertebrate of my spine. What if the cop was the one to see what I did—that I didn’t call for help afterward, that I just ran away and left him to die?

  My back hurts from the weight on my shoulders, heavier than I’d realized it had accumulated to over the years, heavier than I think I can manage alone. The weight of it compresses my spine, taking my height down another few inches.

  Then there are more worries behind the first.

  Could I pass a breathalyzer? Not a murder charge, I know, but still something worth worrying over, still something that could bring me down—because there are too many me’s all rolled into one, catching one catches them all.

  My legs don’t feel attached anymore. I can see them, but I know, I’m positive they’re someone else’s limbs. I’m not actually sure they ever were my own. Maybe I should detach them, shed the unnecessary pieces of me, the things I no longer need.

  But my biggest fear surrounding those lights is if my trail of bloody footprints, from one state to another, one name to another, is finally catching up to me. This could be my undoing, my end. And if it is, am I strong enough to do whatever needs to be done?

  My neck throbs, pulsing pain from my scalp to my temples and down again.

  Worse yet…if I fall, will I be taking Aidan down with me?

  Is this where every path I’ve ever walked down converges? Am I caught for every delicate, beautiful death that’s lead me here?

  Maybe.

  A cloud rolls over me, numb, and I can feel the paralytic moves from the inside out.

  It’s one of those moments that lasts barely any time, but fits the space of a thousand questions, a hundred million thoughts. It’s one of those times you look back on and wonder how it didn’t take longer.

  I look to the mirror, my eyes wider now, seeing more than I want to.

  My fingers tighter around the wheel, nearing the point of cracking and breaking off.

  My stomach in knots, tenser than they ever have been before.

  And then…and then the liquid inside me freezes, my whole body going rigid, no longer hot, but solidified.

  I watch. I can’t believe it even though I see it happening.

  The lights get so bright, they fill my whole mirror, my whole brain, my whole car. They flash, and they flash, until I feel like I might have a seizure.

  Red, blue, red, blue.

  I breathe; I can breathe again. The air rushes into my lungs like it’s finally meant to be there, like it was just waiting for permission, for the right moment. And now is that moment.

  Because then the cop drives past me.

  I watch, my head turni
ng to follow the tail pipe, as the cop drives down the street, getting smaller.

  And I still can’t believe it. Despite seeing it actually happening, it doesn’t seem real. My brain refuses to catch up as the car rushes past. I pulled over. My car is off—I don’t actually remember turning the key backward to kill the engine, but the proof is in the cool interior, in the lack of lighting.

  The cop didn’t want me.

  They didn’t want me.

  As suddenly as the realization sinks in, I’m moving. I can’t sit here any longer, because something bigger is building. And I get out of the car, my door swinging so wide it comes back the other way, and I have to use my hand to stop it from hitting me.

  Once out, there’s almost no clearance, absolutely no time before I hit the ground, falling onto my hands and knees right onto the sidewalk, the curb cutting into my knees. I start throwing up, letting it all go onto the concrete, my body rejecting everything from tonight, everything inside of me.

  Eventually it’s done, long after it started, and I can feel the effects already.

  I’m completely spent.

  I can’t take any more.

  It’s been one thing after another; my body, my mind, I can’t take any of it.

  No more.

  As I stand, ready to get back into the car, ready to make my way home, I’m stopped by a sound. There’s a ringing in the distance; it’s faint but it’s really there, ringing into the night and not just in my imagination. I wonder for just a moment, but then I see the light.

  My phone.

  It’s a ways back in the grass, farther into the patch of green than where I was looking before. I never picked it up after I stopped talking to Aidan, but there it is. There it really is. Somehow it’s another thing I have a hard time believing.

  Gagging again, coughing up spit and drops of the bile still left inside, I pause. My stomach lurches, twisting in on itself and flipping inside out, until my hands are on my knees and my head is between them. But nothing substantial comes up this time, because there’s nothing left. It’s all out already, all behind me on the sidewalk. I dry heave for a minute anyway.