Deep in the Darkness (36 page)

The fog rose up even further, encapsulating me. It seemed unexplainably alive, swirling and pulsing around me like a toss-up of underwater silt. I felt terribly small and insignificant in its grasp, blind and being led into an inescapable trap. Vainly, I tried to convince myself that the hantavirus germ had worked, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Nothing to be afraid of? You think the virus worked on that Demon?

That was just a dream...wasn't it?

There were never more unanswered questions than now.

The trees spread and the fog parted to reveal the circle of stones. I stepped into its center, looking around. Silence dominated at first, but then there was a bit of laughter: low, rasping, mocking. It paralyzed me, nearly stopped my heart, my breath. The fog spread and formed a perfect circle around me, as if to create a broad showcase of light for me to perform under. I stood there for a moment, then took a step forward toward the center stone. The laugh emerged again, louder this time and from a different direction. It seemed to derive from everywhere: before me, behind me, above and below. It
filled
the environment.

The fog then began to move upwards. It gathered into a dense form that rose fifteen feet high and five feet wide, amassing into a compact, recognizable shape: that of the great demon from my dream. In the center of the roiling fog that formed its head, two golden lights burned. A hole broke for its mouth, and the laugh blared forth once again. The fog glowed even brighter, the demon now taking on a more definitive shape. Its skin began to darken. Muscles formed in its arms and legs as they writhed about, seeking mobility. Golden veins pulsed throughout its body, igniting its head so that the six horns and braided hair came into sharp view. A think black tongue jutted from its mouth, dripping venom that sizzled as it hit the ground. The creature was almost complete now, as it was in my dream, and I could actually see yellow claws emerging from its hands as it reached down to grab its horribly misshapen erection. Tempered puffs of fog shot from its penis in hot steam-engine bursts.

And then it raised its nearly-formed head to the sky and bellowed a sound like nothing I'd ever heard before. It silenced the woodland insects and generated a gale of cold turbulent wind that whipped at the branches in every tree. The ground resonated beneath my feet.

I peered up at the thing, terrified, awaiting my fate of death. It peered down at me with its glowing golden eyes, then drew its mouth down, the forming lips swelling like balloons and revealing green-black stumps for teeth along a reddened jaw. The wind picked up even stronger, and nearby I could hear branches snapping angrily in the trees.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the fog that had crafted the beast dissipated. I could feel the shifting wind of its exodus, the fog breaking up and forming a tornado shape that whipped itself into a circuitous frenzy. Snow and leaves exited the area amidst the circle of stones in a windswept rush. A passage into the lair of the Isolates whipped open from the forest floor, and in a drill-like motion, the fog that had been the great creature sank down into it and disappeared.

A surge of adrenaline beat back my fatigue, allowing me to stagger forward toward the entrance. Although the fog-beast was gone, the wind it produced remained as strong as ever, and it whipped at me fiercely, sending soil and wet snow into my face. Once at the entrance, I looked around at the coalition of stones that remained undisturbed in their intimidating stance. Their circuitous path made me dizzy, and I swayed and pitched my head forward, gasping for air. I kneeled before the hole, and peered deep into its inviting darkness.

I went in, stepping downward neither quickly nor slowly, following the tunnel, down, down, down, relying solely on my senses to guide me through the blackness. I traveled forward, unable to see, realizing that if I mistakenly ventured off into one the branching corridors, I might get lost. So I did my damnedest to stay on the path, regulating my breaths with smooth even inhalations, keeping the pace slow and steady with my hands out before me to help guide the way. Mud and water sloshed beneath my feet. Roots from the low ceiling pinched my hair. At one point I slipped and fell in the cold mud, but quickly stood up and kept on walking.

I walked in the blackness for nearly fifteen minutes, thinking that I'd never make it there, that I'd perhaps taken a wrong turn and was now on my way to some indiscriminate exit in a farmer's field. But soon a faint light flickered into view. I moved towards it, now able to make out the dirt walls around me. I hadn't taken a wrong turn. The hub, it was just ahead. I continued forward, turned a corner and beheld the wide-open entrance to the main dwelling place of the Isolates, thirty feet ahead.

Slowly, I walked forward.

Even here, cold silence continued to rule. There was no bustle of activity, only the flickering scatter of diminished wall-torches.

I moved closer to the entrance.

Then, suddenly, I heard them. Moans rife with pain and suffering. I stopped to listen, and stayed there for a few minutes before I could brave the courage to move on. When I finally entered the lair of the Isolates, I beheld them. They were all here. The Isolates.
  

They were gathered in a seemingly unending collection of withered bodies, knotted together in a great mass of ruin. Many of them were dead, many were still dying and squirming. But not a single golden eye was aglow.

I smiled victoriously as I walked through them, contemplating the results of the pains of my labor: a mass execution, the genocide of an entire race of beings now collected in a vast playground perfectly suited for the infestation of maggots. I never felt more in powerful in my life. I won.
I fucking beat them
.

I turned away, my whole body a solid ache of torment. Sweat blanketed me, adding to the discomfort. Mosquitoes poked my skin. I paced back through the carnage, making sure not to trip over any of the bodies in my path.

Suddenly, in a quickened thrust, something grabbed my ankle. The claws punctured my skin and I yelped out in pain. I looked down. A sick Isolate had me in its grasp, blood and mucous pouring from its nose, foam from its mouth. And then suddenly I recognized this one from the jagged scar racing across its face. Fenal. The glow in his eyes grew sharply bright, then faded down to gray right before my eyes. And then, it died. The hand released its grip. I kicked it away disgustedly.
He wanted you to help him, Michael.

I turned around one last time to admire my work.

In the distance, in one of the multitude of burrows, I saw a single pair of eyes ignite, their glow intense, pinning me. In their illumination I saw a single bony hand raise up and point an accusatory finger at me.

And as I considered the unexpected possibility that one or more of the beasts might be immune, a single howl like the one I'd heard in the woods ripped the silence to tatters, condemning me back to the life of hell I had momentarily escaped.

I
waited at the edge of the woods, staring up at my house. The wind had muscled away two more boards from the upstairs windows. The darkness within peered down at me watchfully, daring me to move on.

It had taken me a long time to return back home, my body riddled with stiffness and monumental aches. My muscles felt atrophied, my breathing labored, and I wondered if this is what felt like being on the receiving side of a heart-attack. Once I'd escaped the underground den, which had taken the better part of an hour, I took a few moments to rest before journeying back home. Now, darkness was approaching, and the setting sun cast an elongated shadow of myself across the side of the house that seemed to mock me as I finally made my way across the lawn. I wondered if I had the fortitude to actually leave here, and laughed madly at the possibility that after all this time I wouldn't be able to flee because my legs had no strength left in them to take me.

I went into the house via the side door. It was cool and dark and damp inside. I staggered down the hall into the kitchen. My muddy footfalls echoed spookily on the tiles, reminding me of the noise a sickened stomach makes.

"Christine?"

The eerie silence swallowed up my voice like water into a sponge. The wind rattled the boards over the living room windows. Alongside the front door were two duffle bags, presumably the supplies Christine and Jessica packed for the journey out of Ashborough. The sight of them gave me a ray of hope, and I found the strength in me to continue on.

"Christine?" I called upstairs.

No answer.

Again I was scared. My heart pounded ferociously.
This is really getting old
. Where were they? What were they doing?
Sleeping, perhaps
, I thought with doubt. I took the steps one at a time, the pessimistic silence making the skin on my back and arms ripple with gooseflesh. The walk up was short and terrifying, and I felt like a man walking the plank into shark-infested waters.

I reached the landing and immediately saw a spot-trail of blood leading down the hall past the closed door of the master bedroom. I stared at it for a long time, feeling fear and madness weighing down on me, and I imagined myself as a small house caught in the beginnings of an unstoppable mudslide, wondering how much pressure I could tolerate before caving in.

Soon I stood before the master bedroom. The blood on the floor was thicker here and it was smeared around as if someone had stepped in it. I grabbed the doorknob with a sweaty palm and put an ear against the door.

From beyond, I heard a gentle cry. A whimper.

I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

I saw Jessica first. My little girl was sitting silently in a chair against the right wall of the bedroom alongside the boarded window frame. She was staring blankly towards the bed, head cocked, eyes cold and hypnotic, and it became immediately apparent that her intense inaction was the handiwork of the Isolates—she looked no different now than she did the in the basement of Old Lady Zellis.

Hey Michael!

The call was propelled from the smidgen of sanity my conscious held on to. It told me that there was much more to take in and that I ought to try and tame the fires of madness in my head because there weren't any calm waters ahead to put them out.
 

I let the door swing all the way open, and was greeted by the sight of my wife, the woman whom I walked down the aisle with and traded vows, for richer and for poorer, sickness and in health. She was lying naked on the bed, head tilted uncomfortably against the headboard, legs spread apart amidst a massive wash of blood. Her arms fidgeted at her sides, fists gripping the stained sheets in bunches. Her belly—her pregnant belly—was no longer swollen with child. Somewhere here was our baby.
Our baby
.

I walked toward her.
Christine, what's happened to you?
I saw blood on the footboard of the bed, on the floor, on the walls. It was
everywhere
.

And suddenly, I screamed.

It came from me ungoverned, reverberating around the room and through the halls of 17 Harlan Drive, the house that had now become haunted with the living ghosts of the present. I realized at this moment that nothing could stop the evil brewing here. It would simply go on and on forever despite any roadblocks; there was nothing more certain than that except for my undying screams. Insanity...yeah, it had finally taken over, I could feel it finally. It had come out with all its guns blazing, and all I could think about was the great golden-eyed demon-beast in the woods whose presence brought out the very best in its progeny, and the most abominable conducts in its enemies: the simple folk of Ashborough who had come here seeking charmed lives and left with blood-soaked consequences for their inactions.

Christine had heard me scream, of course. I looked at her, dazed. Our eyes locked, mine filled with tears, hers with blood. Christine was gone now. Not dead per se, but gone in mind, in soul, and the thing that had replaced her couldn't have been happier at the moment to let me know all about it. This possessed thing that became of my wife pulled its split lips back into a wicked grin and licked the blood on its teeth, then arched its hips up from the mattress and pressed down on its belly. What had once been Christine's placenta came bursting out from her vagina, ruptured and purple and pumping blood and birth matter in a horrible flatulent spew. I cried for Jessica who remained in a catatonic state. Then I turned and vomited, the gristly odor of blood and feces taking full control of my stomach. Gagging, I turned back to face the scene, and that was when the bathroom door opened.

Here came my child.
Walking
. Half human, half Isolate, it staggered out with a full coat of sticky-wet body hair, its face untouched by Isolate genes excepting the hideous glow of its golden eyes. It careened toward me, this thing only eighteen inches high, reptilian feet leaving congealed prints on the hardwood floor. It held up both its hands, not for me to accept it, but to strike. Blood and amniotic fluid dripped from its yellow claws. I staggered back but the thing latched onto my leg, swaying and clawing and then biting into my shin with its powerful little teeth. I kicked at it, swatted at it. My screams and the wails of the demon-child erupted from the room, and that was when Jessica suddenly sprang into action. This brought a brief flickering light to the end of my long dark tunnel, but it was quickly extinguished when I realized that my daughter was still caught in the throes of her catatonia and had no intentions to assist me. Instead, she came at me, arms outstretched, hissing like an angry cat. She lanced into my legs, tripping me up as I frantically attempted to shake the baby-beast away. I fell back on my seat, and felt the wind bullet out from my lungs in a sharp unintentional exhale. The baby-beast fell away and careened against the bathroom door, then immediately righted itself and scowled as it looked back at me, gaze glowing and resentful. I scrambled to the wall, staring dumbfounded up at the three bodies in the room with me.