Deep in the Darkness (28 page)

The anticipatory panic I felt could never be aptly illustrated using words alone. The possibility of finding a comfort level within their domain seemed not to exist, so when the sudden eventuation of death manifested, a whole new realm of fear took the place of everything I'd known and realized up until this point. Would they kill me for not living up to the expected task?

I found myself suddenly alone in the tiny alcove. Behind me they had all emerged from their resting places into the core of the den, crawling slowly and quietly, the amassed grind of their teeth and claws sending wicked shudders throughout my body, and I nearly collapsed at the sight of them: a greater body than I'd ever imagined them to be. Their clan amassed to great enumerations, to a point so abundant that I couldn't imagine them not needing to soon branch out into newly settled territories, perhaps beyond Ashborough, something quite daunting in theory.

I could only kneel at the edge of the dirt chamber, staring out at the hundreds of golden eyes, which in turn all stared back at me. Carefully, I stepped down from my platform and paced slowly away, keeping my sights to my feet and feeling their bodies brushing by me.

A loud scuffling ensued. I cringed, expecting them to leap me. When they didn't, I turned to see what it was that had had them so suddenly kinetic.

I beheld a gruesome sight.

A few of the demons had ripped the dead body from its resting place in the alcove and began tearing its limbs away. In mere seconds many more had feverishly pounced on it, and I was horribly reminded of a documentary film I'd seen where a pride of lions competed for a share of a downed wildebeest. Rancid jaws locked onto muscle, tendon, and bone, pulling away as much sustenance as possible. Wild screeches and howls ensued, and before I found the fortitude to grasp my sanity, the once-dead creature had been reduced to mere gristle lodged between the spaces of their twisted teeth.

I shouldn't have been surprised, after all, I'd seen the damage they could do via Lauren Hunter and Rosy Deighton. But...to finally see them in action...it sent me for a loop, this aggressive nature of the beasts. When this feeding ritual was complete, Fenal led me back into the first hovel and sent in additional Isolates to be treated.

Finally, when I felt I could handle it no more, they stopped coming in. A period of time passed where I felt afraid to simply move, so I sat in the cave and at one point may have even drifted off into a light sleep, my head resting against the muddy wall. In this time I dreamed of better times, of living in Manhattan in our cramped apartment; how foreign the bump and grind of the city life seemed now. All that which lay amidst the realms of normalcy seemed to exist only on unreachable planes of existence.

I startled awake to find two Isolates forcing me to my feet. Bewildered, I stumbled from the small cave into the den. The entire mass of Isolates had gathered, their golden eyes aglow and pointed in my direction.

Fenal stood before them, staring at me. I stared back at him, wondering if my time had come, and to some odd extent, hoping it did.

Fenal raised his arms high. I saw a black beetle nesting in his armpit. It circled there for a few seconds then skittered down the side of his mangy torso. "
Katah!
" he screamed. The hundreds of golden-eyed night dwellers squealed and screeched in a roaring frenzy, waving their broomstick arms in all directions.

Something seemed wrong, and I felt that my existence might be coming to an inglorious end right here—that my last breathing moments would take place now, in this den of hell. I prayed to God for mercy, asking him protect Jessica and Christine should I die right here and now.

A flurry of activity arose behind Fenal, a jostling of bodies. Then, a scream.

A human scream.

Deep, guttural, exhausted, pained, it was most surely that of a man's. I craned my neck in attempt to peer past Fenal and those few Isolates crouching menacingly alongside him, but a number of the breed were holding me firmly by the arms and legs, keeping me in place, and I could not make out the cause of the commotion, or the source of the moan.

Fenal gazed at me, his eyes glowing as bright as the torches providing light to this hellish pit. Those hunkering near him suddenly darted away like frightened cats, their squeals echoing about the chamber.

I stared back, waiting, never imagining for the even slightest moment that any worse nightmare could exist beyond all I'd endured for the past six months. I was wrong. It did.

Through the tops of my eyes I saw something move, and I did my best to focus on the continuing activity just behind Fenal. The head-Isolate then stepped aside and in his place I saw a figure loom, that of a man, hunched and obviously wearied. I could not see his face at first, but I recognized the dark denim jeans and flannel jacket he wore.
  

In an instant two Isolates pounced the man, digging their fingered and toed claws into his clothes and skin. He screamed and they grasped him by the hair, mocking his screams with wild howls of their own. They pulled him to his knees and a shroud of flickering torch-light washed across his trembling face, badly beaten, bloodied, bruised.

Phillip.

Seeing Phillip here, like this, introduced me to a powerful new emotion, one which pooled all my sentiments, my perceptions, and submerged them deep into a sea of devastation, creating a feeling that I could only interpret as dreadfully stagnant, and lifeless.

Fenal approached me, cracked bulbous lips inches away from my face. He whispered, "Savior." His dirty breath stank of decay. "
Maltor..."

The entire clan repeated the foreign gesture, hushed, yet deep and caustic. Hundreds of golden lights glowed in the distance. Confusion beset my tortured mind.
 

Maltor?

Phillip's eyes, what little life remained in them, pleaded with me. His bloodied lips trembled, the voice coming from them cracking with fatigue and fear. "I shouldn't have told you anything, Michael."

Jesus. The Isolates were punishing him for breaking their law. That night on the porch to my house, when we spoke, Phillip had told me about their keen ability to spy on people, to listen in on others' conversations. He'd also shown me what they'd done to Rosy, and that was much more than they could ever allow above and beyond his attempts to get me to make the sacrifice.

They'd been in the woods listening to our entire conversation. And they didn't like what they'd heard.

Now, Phillip would pay.

And so would I.

Fenal slithered over. He came within inches of my face. His breath stank of rotting flesh. He forcibly handed me a club of wood which looked as though it had been crudely carved from a woodland tree. I grasped it, suddenly aware of their dreadful intentions for myself and for Len.

Maltor.
Kill
. They wanted me to kill Phillip Deighton.

I held the wood club in both hands, sweat pouring from my palms, my mind circling in vain attempt to find the logic behind their perverse request. But I could not. A thing such as logic did not exist down here. The golden-eyed breed is pure evil, ungracious and malevolent, unknowing of such a philosophy. Without Neil Farris here, they would become sick and lame with injury and disease. Enter the new doctor. They kidnap me, hold me and my family hostage until I cure each and every God-damned one. Make them strong, what they thrive to be. Evil beings, God's impropriety of creation, revived and brimming and anxious to live life as they only know how.

Savior. Yes, that's what they call me.
Now
I understand why. I am here to save their race from extinction. And soon, from what I can fathom, they'll be done with me. As they were at the time with Neil Farris.

Maltor!
Fenal screamed. The breed repeated his demand, the roar of it deafening.

"No," I said, feebly, knowing very well I was simply prolonging their game by not cooperating.

A demon appeared from just behind Fenal, groveling towards me on its knees, a great tormentive grin pulling its lips wide.

In one dirty, twisted claw it held Jessica's teddy bear, its one button-eye still dangling from withered threads.

Dear God...
They had violated my asylum, the one place where I find my only peace of mind. The place of my purest and most precious possession, the
only
place still sacred in my life. My daughter's room.

My God, how did they get in?

The demon dug its claws into the teddy bear and shredded it with one swift motion. Soft white stuffing fell out, so alien here in this befouled place.

"Maltor," it said.

I had no choice, their threat was clear. Kill Phillip or they would kill my daughter.

I set my eyes upon Phillip He was crying, tears pouring down his bruised face, through the blood, the dirt, the pain.

I closed my eyes, raised the club, and swung.

W
ith barely the strength to stagger up the stairs, I looked up, pondering the grisly sight: my precious beauty torn from limb to limb, her innocents splattered on the walls of her so-called sanctuary.

My heart tottered as I took each step, my muscles screaming in pain. I reached landing, turned and entered Jessica's room. My nerves flared the moment I saw her.

Turning in bed, Jessica faced me. She rubbed her eyes, her golden locks partially covering her face.

"Hi Daddy." Her voice, sweet, tender, innocent.

I smiled, sat next to her on the soft mattress.

She sat up. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing a smear of blood on her forehead.

Shivering, I held her close and cried, knowing I must come up with a solution, some way to leave Ashborough without further injury or harassment. My body and mind cannot go on any longer, can no longer endure any further anguish. I
must
find a way, must protect my family from the Isolates.

They have Christine.

But is that realistic? The barriers have proved worthless. Attempts by others to leave have gained only injuries and death for their efforts. And now, with the breed healthier, stronger...

It is not
whether
they will harm my family, it is a matter of
when
. Possibility has become probability.

Leaving is not the answer. In this playground of good and evil, my only solution is to fight back.

My only hope.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Where's my teddy?"

I stayed silent, watching the sunrise behind the woods. I hugged Jessica in response, running my fingers through her hair as I regarded the woods from the window, trying desperately and not succeeding in formulating my next move.

For The Infestation Of Maggots

E
veryday I'd wanted to give up. Twice, maybe three times, I actually considered suicide. But that, I told myself, might act as an expressive form of murder—certainly they'd take my decision to selfishly escape as a strike against them, and they would respond by killing my family, making me, in theory, a murderer of my own family. It takes the old adage 'what goes around comes around' and contorts it into something horridly incomprehensible.

So I gave up on the suicidal thoughts and tried dearly to find some degree of contentment despite the odd circumstances inflicting me on a daily basis. My days, where I'd see (or hear) Christine leaving to take Jessica to school, where I'd see two or three unspeaking patients during the day who never seemed to have anything worth seeing a doctor about (I've come to the assumption that the Isolates were sending them here to keep tabs on me, just as they had with Sam Huxtable; paranoid? me? You'd be too). I'd eat, shit, catch an hour or two of sleep, then slip into my office to wait out their signal. During this time Christine would return home and every time I'd wonder just where the hell she spent her days, what she did. We still weren't speaking; this seemed to be a mutual concession, leading me to
 
believe even more so that she harbored some Isolate-induced deceit under tight wraps. This, too, I gave up on trying to unveil. In time, I told myself, it would all come out in the open. And then the shit would hit the fan.

Sooner or later, it would have to happen.

Three weeks after the death of Phillip Deighton, it did happen.

And it was all my doing.

I
awoke to a strong gale of December wind that'd rattled the windows in my office so hard I mistook it for a misguided flock of birds. Startled, I sat up from the couch and peered around the office, which had taken on the alarming appearance of a madman's junkroom: books pulled down from the shelves; dirty plates piled high; papers littering nearly every inch of the wood flooring. I'd taken up permanent residence here about two weeks prior, my contact with Jessica and Christine now limited to a random crossing of paths en route to the bathroom or refrigerator. At this point I've come to assume that my patients have dropped off completely, although I don't answer the door anymore; the knocks are as infrequent as one or two a day, and the phone has stopped ringing altogether.

I hear Christine leaving every day, beginning with her footsteps in the kitchen, the cold and limited conversation with Jessica, then the slamming of the front door and the eventual starting of the minivan with its tires that crunch over the gravel driveway as it backs away. My days are spent wondering whether the Isolates in fact have Christine under their control, and what dark tasks they might have her carrying out; have they threatened the safety of Jessica, or even perhaps our unborn child, hence forcing her to maintain utter silence and commit grisly tasks? The answers to this remain deeply buried.