Darkness

by F. Bradshaw

  I would take them all. The dog moved for me. I turned to greet it and take it down. He swept behind me, biting down on my neck, trying to hold my body as I tore at the dog and him. I kicked the dog away with a cracking noise. He was not so easy to get rid of. I could feel the release of the venom he was trying to give me. It felt heavy but useless against me. I reached my hands around his neck, tearing and ripping the flesh way.

  Chapter 41

  I could feel his darkness drip coldly on me. Its stillness and calmness dripped thickly on me. He would not let go. I could feel the warmth and pieces of me being pulled into him. I thought of Ash again and that night. The memory invaded him and me.

  “Emi, I barely had anything to drink. Just give me the fucking keysss,” her voice slurred the command.

  “Ash, you’re drunk, and no way are you driving. Been down this road before, not happening again.”

  “Bitch, I know how to hold my drink, so just fuck off.” Her drunken anger was the usual. She always drank too much and left me to clean up the mess. I wanted her to get into an accident to teach her a lesson. She needed to be taken down a few pegs.

  “You are such a whore. Why not go fuck someone for their keys? You seem to only be good at that.” She lunged for me hitting me in the face. I hit her back in the side. She straddled me and just started punching me relentlessly. She stopped and grabbed the keys from me. She got up from me kicking me in my side and went to the driver’s seat of the car. I got up getting into the passenger seat. I tried to get the keys from the ignition before she started it. She wrenched it on and hit the gas.

  “Come on, you are too drunk to drive. Stop the fucking car!”

  “Don’t like it? Then get the fuck out! I can drive better than you blind folded.”

  “Ash, come on just chill out. Wait till you are more sober, if you must drive.”

  “I told you to get the fuck out, if you don’t like it. I don’t care anymore.” There was no talking to her. I just had to be ready to grab the wheel or parking break. I was not going to fight her anymore. Maybe I should have. The car reached the turn before the bridge to the house. I tried to see out in the cold rain, but nothing was visible.

  “Can you at least slow down? It is pouring.” She just hit the accelerator. What a fucking bitch. I was going to pull the break when the car came into view. We were not going to stop. I could see how the crash would happen. Ash jerked the wheel too far to the left, and we went into the trees. They scrapped across the metal and crashed into the windows. The car came to a hurling stop, and the branch settled into my chest. The pain never really registered.

  “Ash, are you alive over there?”

  “Owww. That hurt. Oh shit, we crashed.” The car was at an angle looking at the river just a few yards below. Blood pooled on the cracked window turning it red. “Mom and dad can’t know I was driving. Switch places with me. Fix this. You should never have let me drive. This is all your fault!” Her whiny voice was obnoxious. The coldness then was sweeping into me.

  “I am pinned by the branch. You are on your own this time.” She reached for the branch and pulled it out. The pain astounded me.

  “Problem solved, now switch seats before they get here.” She half pulled me over her. Everything was getting cold and starting to spin. “Remember you were driving not me! Promise me!”

  “Ash!”

  Everything seemed to pour out of me. I could feel the stillness in my body growing. She would make it out, but I wouldn’t. Death filled me in this memory. I wanted to be free of him, and yet both of us could feel it. I felt his heart move as though it was his racing to the end of him. My own seemed to share its rhythm and wanted to burst out of my chest.

  The coldness of the impending death wrapped over both of us pulling us in. Death was going to take us. The world blurred to see the stillness of a shadowing light as though nothing could be seen. Black darkness covered him and me. He tried to pull away as I had done not wanting to feel the death that I had been left with, but I could not let him go. I held him tight to my neck to my vein to the end of this for him. Could he survive death this time? Could I? Our hearts in sync racing, and then they started to slow. The tempo of our hearts ending was like at the end of a racing dance where you slow and hold on. I was going to hold on, but would I last?

  The warmth of his scent washed over my prisoner and me. He, too, was taken in by the scent. I could feel the blood touch my lips. Insistence took a hold of me. I let go of my prisoner and took hold of his life renewing mine. The monster fell to the floor, and I took him deeper, his heartbeat calling to me as it had always done.

  I knew it too well. His scent covering my body, the rush of emotions and fear took a hold of me again. Destruction and everything else fell away. It was the two of us. I could not stop taking him in. I needed him. He pulled me into him pulling his arm away from me, but wrapping me in to his embrace. I bit down on his neck letting the blood rush in.

  Thump, thump, thump. The warmth of him rushed into my body calling me to him. I wanted to take everything. The world was gone. A red, warm haze coated everything. It was like warm chocolate just before it is tempered. It drowns me in its rich velvet taste. The smell of him washed over me begging me to wrap his skin around me to be part of me. The warmth of him, not like Brennus, there was not a fire in his blood, but a sweetness and warmth that was deeper.

  Chapter 42

  He pulled me into his memory. I could see it so clearly. The hospital floor and its grey, dark tiles. I had been there before. The walls a crème color. I could feel his heavy feet half dragging as he looked around. The nurse was so familiar to me, but I was not sure if it was him or me that knew her.

  “Ryan, we will see you in exam room one. Your sister can come if you like.” The nurse name of Donna smiled as she walked off in her sneakers.

  Her blond locks bouncing with the movement. I could feel his dread and my amusement. His body felt heavy from a lack of sleep as he moved toward the room. He looked around at everyone as he moved. I could feel that he wanted any excuse to not have to go into that room.

  He was looking for me. The cast was set on his arm. Her hair a golden blonde, thin, and bronze skin with blue piercing eyes completed the picture of her. She was standing as he entered the room tossing her hair about. Dark circles under her eyes looked as though she had not slept for days.

  “What’s the matter now?” His voice grudgingly asked her. Not a tone I would have thought to come from him. His voice filled with annoyance for her.

  “They are after me. They tried to take me again. You have to get them to stop. They want to kill me.” Her voice was filled with panic and sounded like a crack head trying to explain that the foil on their head was to keep the aliens away. I could quickly feel his disdain for her.

  “Calm down, no one is going to do anything to you. Everything is fine. Just have a seat while we wait to get a specialist who can help you.” His voice was calmer and more reassuring.

  She sat down on the table picking at her hands. Everything about her screamed crack head to me. He leaned back against the wall looking more relaxed to her, but he was just counting off the time. A doctor walked in. His grey hair fit his solid short body. He could not have been taller than me. He walked in with all the calm and self-assurance that Ryan lacked.

  “You got it here?” Ryan was desperate to get out of the room.

  “Yes, I will take care of her. Did Jane come with you to see her?” His voice was strangely calm. A feeling of rage washed over me. He had the same tone as Dr. Heart. The feelings of her drifted as he moved from the room.

  “NO, you can’t go! I need you, Ryan. I need my brother! They are going to kill me.” She ran clenching his body with everything her body could manage.

  It felt like a snake coiling around me not going to let go. He moved trying to get her to unwrap herself from him but no luck. The doctor pulled on her trying to get her to release. She would not let go. The girl clung to him. Then as if a switch was turned o
n, she let go and started punching and clawing at him.

  “You are one of them! You are going to kill me. You will never take me.” She sounded like a raving loon.

  More staff rushed in, and one jabbed her with a needle. It was for her own good. She needed to come off whatever she was on. He moved out of the room once freed from her. He moved quickly to the bathroom. He assessed the scratches and moved his fingers over them slowly assessing the damage. He turned on the water and let it rush over his hands.

  “I don’t need this.” He stared blankly at the mirror. Was he waiting on the mirror to answer him?

  “Well, that’s good, ’cuz you’re in the ladies room.” The voice. I knew that voice. He spun around quickly toward her. Her eyes welled with tears. My eyes. It was my eyes. It was me?

  “Sorry.” He quickly moved out of the room leaving the water running. The door clicked closed with him, watching as I wiped my eyes. He did not run off as I thought he would have. Why did I not remember him? When was I there?

  He watched as I moved from the bathroom and turned down the hall toward the exit. I could feel a smile draw across his lips. He knew me before the day I had remembered meeting him, but this was after my grandparents. He smiled? I could feel as his blood pulled me to the next memory.

  The images blurred together as I was still in the hospital, but I knew the day was different. I could see the black night sky through the window as he stared at the rain. He made notes on a chart and moved silently from the room looking over his drugged sister. The sound clicked off each heartbeat. Ryan walked toward the station and left the chart on the counter looking at a brunette.

  She smiled warmly at him. Her lips painted a rich plump pink. She was tan and smelled of roses and tuna. Hopefully, she must have been eating it and not wearing it. He said nothing to her. I could feel each step as if it were my own. His body was relaxed and motionless other than moving forward. He glanced from side to side looking at the rooms as he passed.

  He took a second look at one room, the walls darker in color from the lack of light. He moved effortlessly to the other side. I could feel his heart beating in our chest picking up in rhythm. It was hardly enough to make the heart race, and yet it was beating quicker and quicker with each step. I could feel a resonating energy surging over his body. It was butterflies in his stomach. What was the cause?

  I wanted to race through the memory to the source of this. He reached the door without looking as he took in a smell. Gardenias and roses, simple and very sweet, he thought. His eyes closed as he positioned himself against the wall next to the door breathing in. The sound of a heartbeat in the room was counted by the machine keeping someone alive. Almost silent sobs caressed the room making a palpable sadness. Ryan’s hand flexed moving open and closed. His breath he steadied as a doctor walked into the room. A nagging feeling did not want me to look in the room. Not that room, not even with him.

  “I am sorry, but he will not recover. It is time to take him off the machines. He is not there anymore. I am so sorry for your loss.” The voice was stark, stagnate.

  He must say that a lot was the only thing that washed over my mind. The voice sounded eerily familiar. I knew him. I knew that tone. Oh, God! Don’t look in the room. Don’t. I won’t be able to, not now, not ever. Stop. Please, I tried to plead with the memory. It would not obey my command.

  “Fine. Do what you need to do.” I could feel Ryan move. Half turning his body with his eyes open looking into the room.

  No. No. The dark brown hair I knew. I knew the room. I knew the man in the bed. Tears filled my eyes in my memory. One click of a button and a flat line, it was all over. The doctor moved from the room, no thoughts, just a passing hand on the shoulder. Did he think that would make it better? Ryan moved into the room. The sobs were not so silent. The girl was holding his aged hand hoping it was all a mistake.

  “This was not the way it was supposed to happen. One car accident and both of them gone. We had plans.” The voice filled with fear, and anger sounded out, hoping no one would hear. Ryan touched her on the shoulder and down her arm to hold her hand over his. The warmth fading from him.

  “I am here if you need me. I will always be here.” Ryan spoke with a soft voice. I could feel his heart. He was so sincere. One moment forgot until now. Yet Ryan was not done with me. The world was fading again pulling me to another memory. Both of us felt the scars of that day.

  I could see it, and then the walk. He was walking from the elevator. I remembered him doing this. This was that day. He had been there on the days pieces of me had died, and now he was here for the day that would finish me off. He was death. There was no explaining how we crossed paths at my worst moments. Always here is what he had said the night my grandfather had died.

  He had been there right after they called my grandmother in the waiting room. Now he would be there when they called me. I did not want to go back there. Not to those moments. I could feel the strong pull of him forcing me to see. Why take the illusions I had that he had been unknowing, for the most part, of what they would do. Why could he not play the grief-stricken brother trying to save his sister? I felt the warmth of his body increase as he moved closer to me. His heartbeat picked up in tempo as he came closer. Strange that it sounded so familiar beyond his normal one. I felt it in my own chest as though it was my heart.

  The words of the moment already gone and known to me, we walked into the elevator to go. I wanted to stop myself. End the moments before they started. Illusions of memory moving forward unable to stop and change them. The ride still felt like forever. The quick intake of breath he took before stepping out of the elevator. He was preparing for something. The touch on my shoulder after the evil Jane we moved to the room. No, please, just stop here.

  Chapter 43

  That was another life. To think about it was another life. That is when who I was had stopped being what I had thought. The darkness in me, I could see it through his eyes, but he did not. He was blind to the evil thing that would now take his life. He was the death of me, but I would murder him. We both were different then.

  The room seemed so small and inviting. I guess you would not want to stick someone who was not under lock and key in a dungeon, or they might not go through with it. He moved silently from the room. As he shut the door, his hand swept over it. Was he feeling for life? This I did not see. This is what he needed me to know. Dr. Heart approached him.

  “She was a good choice to make. The right blood, and the right circumstances. She will be pleased with your choice.” Her face so human and so evil, it was the granny I would imagine Snow White had met just before biting the apple.

  We both took big juicy bites and did not think about what was inside. “You set this up. She is yours. I just helped. I am not sure about this. She is well, she just may not be right. I know she has the right blood, but maybe we should not do this.” His voice sounding confident, but I could feel the panic in it. He knew what was going to happen. He, no they, had chosen me? How could they know I would answer the ad?

  “Don’t go getting soft on me, brother, remember why you are doing this. Remember what she promised us.” Jane. I knew her voice anywhere. She was far too happy doing this. I really wish I could have shoved a heel in her forehead. Quickly, Dr. Heart moved into the room with the drug.

  Brennus walked up in front of him. He swept Jane into his arms. “So she is going to be a good test. We will see how soon she comes around to my charms, if needed.”

  Brennus knew what they were doing, and he was with Jane? Yuck! They had been planning this. It was not something that I had any control over. The scent washed over me, the sickening smell of peroxide. He did not look. He did not have to. I now knew that she had been with them. Without a thought, Ryan rushed for the door of my room. Brennus rushed to stop him bounding his body on top. Ryan tried to fight with him, but Brennus was stronger than he looked.

  “Ryan Matthew Jackson, stop! This is already happening. Give it up, Brother!” Jane sque
aked out.

  He slammed Brennus into the wall just on the side of the door. I heard it then. His heartbeat had been missed by me. It was rushed and full of fight. Ryan was the one trying to stop them. It was never Brennus. Was this his way of trying to show redemption? He was Matt? I felt his heartbeat outside of this memory, and it was fading. Blood and truth were all I wanted. He was giving me that, but it was at the cost. I could not see anymore.

  I pulled away from him, slipping back into thought. His body was standing but barely. “You needed to know.” His voice was trembling. His eyes drained of the fiery green.

  Oh, god no. Now I knew the truth. He had made a promise to be there always, even if I had forgotten it, even if he had tried to follow the others, he still came back to it. He would always be there for me.

  Thump, Thump, Thump… slowing to a stop, seconds going by as if hours had passed. I remembered the feeling of the cold that swept over me that night with Ash. The light in his eyes dying out slowly, and the shadow claiming him, and his soul, and taking him into its embrace. I heard it slow to thump…. thump... the heart almost ready to stop, to beat its last time. The world seemed to darken between each beat. This was not what I wanted.

  The blood coated the walls from those I killed. Their hearts ended without thought, not a beat being cared for. I braced him with my arm as he fell to his knees. I put my other hand to his heart. I had to keep him. I made the choice. It was far easier than I had thought it would be. I truly was a monster, fully changed now, full and unleashed evil. This was always going to be the ending. This was the way it had to be.