B008M2IEII EBOK Page 10

  “And this isn’t a cra—,” she cut me off.

  “Don’t you even say it, Adam Carter! This isn’t a craving. I just want some dill pickles and macaroni and cheese and I might consider killing for either one of them right now.”

  “I’ll head down to the store and get it for you. I assume you want the non-craving flavor of dill pickles and not the craving flavor, right?”

  “You smart ass. I didn’t say who I would kill to get those so you might want to think very carefully about what you say next,” She said as she held her hands up like claws.

  I backed away with my arms held high, “Going now, Boss. Be back in a jiffy, Boss. You don’t need to kill me again, ma’am.”

  “That’s better.”

  She kissed me as I finished putting my coat on and gave me another smile. I smiled back as I grabbed my keys off the hook by the door and headed out to her Jetta. The sun was just setting behind the Olympics Mountains to the distant west so it would be dark by the time I finally made it back home. I was really hoping she wouldn’t change her mind this time and want something else when I got back. I decided to try and head off the second trip and made a mental note of some of the more random things she had sent me out to get over the past several months. Those wafer cookies had forced two return trips already and something was telling me there were none to be found in the house right now.

  The parking lot was vacant for the most part so I parked up close and headed over to the long row of ancient metal shopping carts parked along the front of the building. The first few carts I tried had one wheel that insisted on not cooperating and couldn’t drive straight. By the fourth cart I gave up and just tried not to crash into any displays as I walked through the automatic doors and into the brightly lit store.

  Black mercury with lazy swirling sprites of blue and green.

  The same checker that had called the ambulance for me is working the counter. She is thumbing lazily through a magazine as she leans against her check stand, an open bottle of water sits on the belt next to her. I have been through her line several times since the incident so the drama and excitement of the moment has long since passed for her.

  She waves to me over the lip of her magazine, “Evening, Adam. Another late-night-not-craving cravings run?”

  “You guessed it, Karla,” I smiled and waved back.

  “Let me guess. Bacon flavored crackers and spray on cheese? Wait, no, those horrible cheap cardboard pizzas with the unknown possibly-meat topping with something that resembles, but isn’t, cheese!”

  I laughed, “Macaroni and cheese and pickles. Thanks for the reminder though. I think we are out of that spray-can cheese. Can’t believe she eats all this crap, my kid is going to have a third arm.”

  It took about twenty minutes to get everything I wanted. The cart was full of various fruits and vegetables, the pickles and macaroni and cheese. For an instant it looked like something I would get back in my bachelor days, but it would probably be borderline suicide to mention that to my pregnant wife.

  I smiled to myself at the thought but couldn’t help thinking that there was something I was forgetting. I just couldn’t think of what it was. Karla smiled as I walked up and she started to reach for the first item.

  “Damn, now I remember. Hold that thought, Karla. I damn near forgot those damn wafer cookies yet again!”

  I turned the cart around and briskly walked down the wide frozen food aisle to the back display case. I turned the corner too sharp at the end and met another customer’s cart head on with a crash of flying cracker boxes and potato chip bags.

  “Oh damn! I’m so so—.”

  Black mercury in a pulsating undulating cloud of flashing anger and pure hatred. Flashes of red and green spring out in all directions like bolts of vicious lightning. Tentacles of the Darkness stab out in random directions like a dying star pulsing wasted energy. The shadow is darker than anything I have ever seen. It is like a pool of liquid onyx it is so dark. I cannot break my eyes away from the monster in front of me. The blackness at the core of this person’s being wasn’t dark, it consumed light. Swallowed it, devoured it, and destroyed it. The Darkness flows around the isle and into the ceiling. It is the most vile thing I have ever seen.

  “It’s quite all right my good friend. It’s a small nearly empty store, it happens to the best of us sometimes. No harm no foul, that’s what I always say when these kinds of things occur,” the calm voice speaks to me with just a hint of an English accent but I can’t look away from the curling tendrils of black-mercury undulating and pulsating around the man.

  I cannot speak, I cannot look away. His eyes lock onto mine and his Darkness expands to fill my vision. He is surrounding me. It is an icy prison that I can see no way out of.

  “What in the world do we have here? My oh my, what a fantastic surprise. It isn’t often that I simply run into people like you at random,” he speaks as the tendrils of darkness flow over me like a beast preparing a kill. His words are very crisp and articulate and his clothing matches his words. He is wearing a dark black leather jacket over what is most likely the whitest dress shirt I have ever seen. His black slacks and dress shoes are flawless. His Darkness pushes out yet again. Even the clean, white lines of his perfect fingernails stand out.

  My soul is being invaded. Its filthy light is invading me, violating my being, terrifying me.

  A tentacle of Darkness smoothly moves out and caresses the center of my black mercury. I try vainly to push him back, to peel back this deadly attack but I have nothing. I am like a child fighting an adult. His strength is overpowering and revolting at the same time. I try a push but it is as if I am trying to push a mountain. He is far more powerful than I think I could ever be and everything I try to do is utterly futile.

  “Oh my, you have a little push too? So quaint yet this is so absolutely fascinating,” he is leaning over the handle of the cart and rests his chin on his fist. “Do tell me kind sir, who exactly are you and what brings you to this location this time of the evening?”

  His Darkness invades me again. I am frozen by the strength of his assault and his apparent ease at thwarting any defense I attempt to throw up. The feeling of violation is overwhelming, I feel as if I may throw up at any second.

  The man walks around me slowly, his Darkness flowing around us like a black sheet of silk in the wind. He articulates carefully with his hands as his Darkness probes in and around me like dark specters. He looks me up and down with both his eyes, and his Darkness, “You and I simply must chat soon but this is neither the time nor the place. It has been simply fantastic meeting you,” he tilted his head as he paused for a moment to think, “Adam. We will most definitely be speaking again. Oh yes, most definitely. You and I are going to become very close friends before your time here is through.”

  Like a table cloth in a magic trick, his Darkness snaps away and leaves me feeling cold and alone but free. The sounds of his footsteps continue down the aisle behind me. The click of his dress shoes sounds nearly overwhelming as it fades down the aisle, echoing in my head like drops of water in a cave. I find I am shaking uncontrollably and cannot find the courage to turn and see if he is. It is all I can do to keep from throwing up as I think about his touch.

  It is nearly five minutes before I am able to get control of myself and begin to move again. The store is still filled with the smell of ozone and dank swampy forest water. This thing that I seemingly just found has been haunting my sleep for years. The beast in that dark, moonlit forest, the thing screaming at me through the trees, was here. The evil of my nightmares was real, and he just found me.

  ~2~

  I had gone through the check stand without saying a word. Karla may have talked to me but I never heard it. I was in my own world of worry and fear. I handed her the money in my wallet and assumed she gave me back the correct change. The entire time I was watching out the front door of the store. I’m not sure why I was so sure he has already left the building but something told me he had.<
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  She slid the bags to the end of the check stand and thanked me. I heard her voice as if it were a dream and simply nodded in return while I continued to stare outside. From inside the well-lit grocery store the parking lot was a sheet of blackness with small pockets of light from the few lights in the lot.

  I stepped out of the store expecting to see the man somewhere lurking and waiting for me but the small lot was empty with the exception of the Jetta. Erica’s car sat alone in the middle of the large black lot, an island of escape just waiting for me to make a move. I walked out slowly expecting him to come darting out of the darkness at any minute. The air was cool and calm. The sounds of the night drifted through the lot. A dog barked far in the distance. Behind the strip mall across the parking lot I hear a generator of some kind growl to life. Off to my right one of the automated crosswalks on Front Street bleeping a warning that the light would change soon.

  “Is everything OK there, Mr. Carter?” Karla calls out from behind me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  “I was just wondering where the other customer that was in here went,” I called back over my shoulder.

  She laughed uncomfortably, “You are the only customer we have had in nearly an hour. Who are you talking about?”

  I turned to her in confusion, “You didn’t see a well-dressed man, Caucasian, black hair, looked to be in his mid-thirties maybe? He was wearing a black leather jacket, really shiny black shoes that clicked when he walked?”

  “I’m sorry Mr. Carter, I don’t ever leave the front end to make sure no one sneaks in. We have had a problem with some of the local teens grabbing beer so I don’t leave this spot. I see every person and employee that comes or goes. Other than you there hasn’t been anyone else in or out.”

  I knew I still had a confused look on my face, “OK. You completely sure about that? You didn’t leave for a bio or anything like that?”

  “Positive. If Greg got wind of me leaving the front end this time of night I’d be looking for a job.”

  I was dumbfounded and shaking my head in confusion, “Have a good night, Karla. Be safe.”

  “You too, see you later, Mr. Carter.”

  I nodded and walked out to the car confused. How could she not have seen him?

  Once the groceries were in the back seat I sat in the driver’s side and just went over what had happened in my mind for nearly thirty minutes. What had I come up against? Why did I think I could push him away? It was like a man that thinks he can outrun a bear. I thought I could do it simply because I had never been tested. I had never had to try. I was coming to realize that whatever abilities I had they needed to be worked and practiced like any other talent. The artist doesn’t get better by simply thinking about art.

  Another part of me was questioning my own sanity. Up until a few weeks ago I thought I was alone in the world. But lately I’m finding I’m not quite as rare as I thought. Did I imagine all of that? I don’t see how someone could simply disappear. He had to be real, I could see him. I crashed into his cart, if he wasn’t there what did I hit? Every time I thought I was getting on top of things, something would come along and slam me down. Three steps up and two steps back.

  I hadn’t ever seen the man in town before so the chance meeting was most likely the last time I would ever see him. I was fine with that. But I also knew it was a lie. The dreams I had been having for several years were all about this man, this thing. What I had smelled in my dreams was the exact thing I had smelled in the store. It was his Darkness. I knew at some point he and I would come together. Tonight may have felt like chance but in my heart I knew it wasn’t.

  With a sigh of resolution I started the car and pulled out of the lot. Looking to the left and right before pulling onto Front Street, I was greeted with a stretch of empty roads and blinking four way stops. Turning left I pulled onto the two lane road and headed toward home. The last stoplight before leaving town blinked yellow ahead of me. A darkened car sat just off the side of the road. As I passed I tried to see in the window but the tinting was too dark. It didn’t matter, I felt him as I passed. He reached out to see if it was me, his filth ridden Darkness dragging over me like the hand of a rotting corpse. I tried and failed to suppress another shudder of disgust as I fool heartedly leaned away from him as I passed.

  I pushed the accelerator to the floor and in my mirror saw the black Lexus pull onto the road without any lights. He had far more power than I did and caught up with little visible effort. I looked briefly at the speedometer and found I had just passed one hundred miles an hour. My mind was racing, how could I lose this guy? I can’t let him know where I live! He already knows my name and for the life of me I don’t even know how he did that!

  The Lexus was only a block behind me. I heard the wheels squeal as I took a long sweeping turn on the highway. He dropped way back as the Lexus started to fishtail around the corner. The heavier car wasn't able to make the turns as quickly as the Jetta on the damp roads. Finally, an advantage! In the distance I see the blinking yellow lights of the May Valley Road turn off. It was a long winding road that would lead me down into Renton and away from my home.

  Turns. I needed turns to lose him and the tighter they are the faster I needed to take them.

  I took the corner at nearly fifty miles an hour, the back of the Jetta sliding hard as the front wheel drive struggled to pull me around the bend. I found myself desperately hoping we didn’t meet any traffic coming the other way. The Lexus was close behind me but couldn’t handle the speed and slid off the road and through a long white picket fence. I slowed down thinking I had lost him when the Lexus exploded through the remaining section of fence and back onto the road. Splintered wood and shrubs blew out ahead of his car as I mashed the pedal down again and accelerated down the winding highway.

  My mind raced as I struggled to keep the small car on the pavement. Exiting a tight turn I could see the yellow warning sign flash by. Twenty-five mile an hour turn ahead! I slid hard into the turn and well over double the safe speed with the Lexus not far behind me. I could feel the Jetta fighting for traction, the rear wheels beginning to squeal as they slid hard into the turn. In my mirror the Lexus breaks loose and slams the guard rail hard. Sparks shower the dark night as he tries to force the car along the rail. I accelerate out of the turn and disappear into one of the neighborhoods leaving the Lexus around a corner behind me.

  I waited for nearly an hour with the car off leaning over into the passenger seat as if this would provide some sort of protection from the evil that was chasing me. I had found a place behind a covered motor home in a small cul-de-sac. I had rolled the window down when the windows starting fogging over from my panicked breathing. The only sounds I could hear were the ‘tink, tink’ of the cooling engine of the Jetta. I did not see or hear the man drive by. I knew I would need to drive back the way I came and dreaded even the thought of it. Part of me wanted to drive the other direction and not stop but I desperately wanted to be back with Erica. I wanted to be back in my own home where I could lock the door and lock out the rest of the world.

  The sound of the Jetta starting was like thunder on the quiet street. I squeezed the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. I wanted to scream at the Darkness, at the curse that had brought this man into my world. For several moments I rocked back and forth with my eyes closed as I tried to build the courage up to leave, tried to keep from crying out loud in fear. I slammed the steering wheel with my fists in frustration and with a sigh I pulled out slowly and made my way back out to the highway.

  I was shaking as I rounded the corner where I knew he had hit the guard rail. His car was still there with the passenger door slightly open. The hood was crushed where he had first impacted the steel and wood posts of the rail. Both driver side wheels were lifted off the ground where he had ridden up on top of the guard rail tearing out much of the undercarriage and leaving it strewn about the street. I gave the Lexus a wide berth as I passed by slowly.

  Empty.


  There wasn’t anyone I could see through the open door, nothing but deployed airbags. Was he standing somewhere nearby? I mashed the gas pedal, the tires chirping as they bit into the wet pavement, and headed back toward home. I had the sudden urge to be as far away from that destroyed Lexus as I could be.

  After a little over a mile, I slowed down to the speed limit and tried to gain my composure. I had lost him and he wasn’t able to follow me home. Both were small victories but I would take any win at this point.

  Up ahead in the distance I see the stop light for our large hillside community. The left turn light was notorious for taking a long time to change.

  I sat at the light for some time listening to the mesmerizing sound of the Jetta’s blinker. The methodical tick-tock left me staring into the distance focusing on nothing and constantly replaying the events of the evening. I could see the edges of my old world as I began to slip back into the hopeless feeling I grown so used to and only recently tried to leave behind. I had lived my life knowing that anytime I had allowed myself to be happy, something, or someone, would pull the rug from underneath me,I and I would crash back down to nothing. Why let myself be happy when someone will just take it away?

  I jumped when a car pulled up next to me but I could see out of the corner of my eye it was a county police cruiser. I turned to nod and wave but froze. I looked in horror as I saw the well-dressed man driving the police car. In the passenger seat next to him an officer sat slumped against the front dash board. I didn’t need to see any signs of trauma to know he was dead; the man had no Darkness around him.

  The well-dressed man’s Darkness filled the police car with dark tendrils of black mercury extending beyond the steel walls of his vehicle, waving and undulating in unmatched rhythm. He stared at me without blinking and simply showed that evil consuming smile. He mouthed words that I could not hear, but could understand nonetheless, “You can’t hide from me, Adam.”