B008M2IEII EBOK Page 18
“You will lose this one, Adam,” he whispers through clenched teeth as we wrestle on the ground. “You have grown stronger but you do not have the stamina. I will wear you down and strip your soul away. You will be nothing and I will go on forever.”
He slams me several times with his elbow but I do not release him. Our Darkness is a swirling, twisting mass of black and gray around us. Tendrils dance and parry as we attempt to outmatch the other. Several car alarms are going off now as the concussive waves roll out repeatedly from our battle. We pound on one another with blast after blast of black energy but we are too evenly matched. I feel the first spark of fear as I realize that Mr. Black may be correct. He will be able to outlast me in this fight and once I show any weakness it will be over in a burst of black energy, my life essence torn from my grasp and flung into the nothingness that would consume us.
Our two shadows are swirling together as we fight closer and closer. The energy mixing and clashing like an ocean storm at our very cores. I will not release him and he will not release me until one of us is dead. An idea creeps into my mind and although terrifying it is what I have to do. I will risk it all. I only hope that Erica isn’t too far away.
I look into my own Darkness. I focus on it and pull both of us in. I see the terror in his eyes as we begin to fall. We are being consumed, we are nowhere and everywhere. I allow us to fall further until I can barely feel the real world around me as we spin uncontrollably. We are falling with no up and no down. The nothing that is everything surrounds us and overwhelms every sense I have. His physical grip on me fades and he tumbles out of control as his fear gives way to outright terror. I see Mr. Black has never been here but I have. He has lost all pretense of attacking me and is now struggling to save himself. His Darkness is flailing, flying out of control as he is in a near panic, desperate to grab anything but to terrified to concentrate. A small tendril of my Darkness spreads outward. Seeking, struggling to find Erica. She is awake and scared. I feel her and she feels me. . Mr. Black has nothing, no one but himself.
I lock on to her and focus on the colors, the sound, the smell of the life energy that makes her who she is. I am snapped from the abyss and release all holds on the vile thing that is Mr. Black. His mouth opens in a silent scream as he falls into away into the nothingness. As his Darkness struggles for anything to hold on to, I put the remaining energy I have into a violent push. I don’t slam into him. I push the life essence that is Mr. Black away from me and into the nothing that does not exist on our plane. Arcs of pure energy fire into nothing, lightning that has no connection. Raw energy bleeds away into the emptiness.
With a final explosion I am launched off of Mr. Black and more than thirty feet away onto the hood of a car. A massive ring of pressurized energy, black and boiling with bolts of electrical arcs explode outward from the core of a dying man. Windows are pulverized, a second fire hydrant on the street detonates in a fountain of water, every window in the strip mall is pulverized into raining clouds of glass dust. The large, lighted signs explode in sparks of shattered glass and venting neon. Car alarms ring across the parking lot around me.
For the first time I can hear dozens of sirens coming from all directions around me. To the west I can hear at least two helicopters making their way towards the battle zone. Water is still shooting several dozen feet into the air from the broken fire hydrants while sparks continue to jump out from the broken street lights and signs. The parking lot looks like a bomb has been dropped on it.
I hurt all over but with nothing but my will remaining I lift my head to see where Mr. Black is. His body is lifeless in a large crater of cracked and upturned pavement, small wisps of what looked like steam were drifting off of the ground around him. No Darkness, no tendrils of evil filth. He is beyond dead; he has ceased to exist in this or any other world. Not one trace of his Darkness exists on this plane. He is gone. He is nothing. I lay my head back and reach out to Erica. I calm her fears and coax the blues and greens out. Carol is on her chest drifting off to sleep, oblivious of the battle that raged in her defense. Light pulls away from me and I drift into the dark, the last thing I feel is the warmth of Erica’s smile as she feels my victory.
I’m alive and my family is safe. I stop fighting the heavy feeling in my body and I let the blackness take me.
Epilogue
I was unconscious for nearly four days. I remember nothing after I had seen the man was truly defeated and gone, his empty shell lying motionless half buried in the pavement. The piece of me that had awoken in the fight is still here, a burning desire to make things right. I felt stronger than I ever had and the Darkness I could see was even clearer than before, it was something I could easily twist to my will. The tendrils moved and danced around me although they had taken on a decidedly darker hue. I guess that is to be expected. It is a small price to pay for having rid the world of something so wrong.
William came by the hospital when he heard I was finally awake. I felt him in the hallway before I heard the voices outside my door. There was a police officer posted there, although I didn’t yet know why, the feeling I could get from him was that he was protecting me and not to keep me from getting away. With a soft click, I saw the door to my room push open. There was no one else in my room and he sat in the small folding chair next to my bed.
I tried my best to explain the battle to him but my memory was understandably hazy on many things.
“It seems as if you took on the demon and won, my friend. The elders would be proud. You did a great thing that day by ending his killing spree. Who knows how long he would have continued roaming from town to town and ending the lives of innocent people. You have slain the monster.”
“It was a lot closer than it seemed. I knew we would fall once I forced us to look at our own Darkness. I took a chance that I still had enough energy to get back to an anchor. A familiar Darkness I could hold onto. The first time I had looked into my own Darkness it was Erica that brought me back. It was a gamble that I could find her, and it looks like it paid out. To be honest I just wanted to make sure he was gone and I would have accepted taking him down with me.”
“How was he not able to come back with out. You yourself said you were entwined.”
“We were entwined because neither one of us was willing to let go. Once he starting falling with no direction, he became less concerned about holding on to me and more concerned about finding something to catch himself. I knew the anchor would upset our balance, so the instant I held on I pushed him out. His Darkness was flailing as we spun so I think in his own fear he was too scared to have the power to hold on to me. From where I was floating he fell into an eternity and kind of just turned into mist. Wherever he is now it is certainly worse than hell, it is nothingness. His body may have been pounded into the pavement but whatever made him the thing he was no longer exists.
William smiled at the thought, “I wish that on no man but if anyone must serve there he is the most deserving. You will be happy to know the damage in the parking lot was attributed to a failed water main. Never mind the fact that there is no probable way that could ever explain it, the city is paying the damage claims.”
“What did the police say about him?”
“You will be surprised to know that they have discounted anything they have found out about him. The only matching record they could find was for a man name Gentry Black. Finger prints they have on file are an exact duplicate for the only survivor from a homicide back in the nineteen twenties. Mother and father were killed and their son was never located. If that was him, and they refuse to believe it is, that would make him well over one hundred years old. Choose to believe what you want.”
“What about the hospital? We tore it up pretty good from what I remember. Seem to recall a ton of broken walls and quite a bit of water pouring out of the ceiling by the time we got out of the building.”
“That is an interesting story. No one is even talking about the damage at this time.”
“What?
How is that even possible?”
“Well, when you hit the abduction alarm it sent the hospital into lockdown. Not sure if you know this but the sprinklers in the fire suppression system has an activation piece made of glass, hence all of them going off as you progressed down the hallways.”
I grimaced as I imagined the volume of damage several floors of sprinklers going off could do.
“How much is that going to cost me?”
“Nothing. You see when the fire alarm came on the lockdown overrode all of the exit locks. Right now the hospital is too busy fighting off several dozen lawsuits by people unable to get out of what they thought was a burning building.”
“So I’m not being blamed for any of this?”
“Who would believe the story? The damage at the hospital is being attributed to a heroic father attempting to save his newborn from a freak pedophile who still managed to make it out of the building. The board wouldn’t dare go after you seeing as you are a hero to pretty much the entire country right now. Not to mention you are being credited with breaking the front windows so people could finally get out of the lobby.”
“I could do without the attention, although from what I have heard this private room is due to that. They have also kept the press at bay which, for me, is pretty darn nice.”
“You should see the cop they posted at your door, I think he is part bull moose. You could also do without the massive bill. Some of the equipment you two broke up costs several thousand dollars. All told your little war blew up several million dollars’ worth of stuff.”
I shrugged. In this case the fame is the lesser of two evils.
“There are also those that know what really happened. People on both sides of the Darkness my friend; you have made a name for yourself in more ways than one. I’m not sure if you are famous, or infamous.”
My brow furrowed, “I don’t like the sound of that at all.”
“I guess it depends on how you look at it. Either way, your battle with Mr. Black wasn’t the end Adam. This is only the beginning for you.”
I leaned back against my pillows and thought about that for several minutes before a smile spread across my face.
“What’s that all about?” William asked with a perplexed look on his face.
With a another quiet click the door pushed open a second time, Erica and Carol flowed into the room on a smoky cloud of Darkness.
~2~
I am standing barefoot in the woods again although this time there isn’t the imminent fear of being pursued. The thick forest smells comfort me, the mossy undergrowth under my feet, the leaves moving in the light breeze. The air is cool but comfortable. The dark around me is filled with the shadows thrown out by the bright full moon. The trees that would be a deep, lush green in the sunlight never see light of day. This isn’t due to some magical darkness, it is simply because here, the sun doesn’t exist.
I catch a quick scent of leather and linen that feels out of place. It was out of place. I feel no fear; it was just something that didn’t usually come this way.
Footsteps to my right catch my attention. A man dressed as if he just stepped out of an early nineteen forties movie walks out of the underbrush and approaches me. He has black patent leather shoes, a dark blue suit, and a tan fedora. His warm blue eyes hide a gentle but old soul.
“Hello, Adam,” he said in a deep, friendly voice.
“Hello sir. I feel like I know you but I don’t recall ever seeing your face. Do I know you? Have we met before?”
“Do you know me? No. Have we met before? I will leave that at a curious maybe. Who I am isn’t as important as what I have to say.”
“If you say so, I’m not one to argue in my dreams, I don’t often win.”
His warm laugh at my poor joke was comforting. He placed his arm on my shoulder, “You have arrived, my friend. I am simply a welcoming committee of sorts.”
I look around the forest as I try to understand his words.
“Arrived where? I’m not sure I follow you. I visit this particular spot in the forest quite often. I can assure you this is most certainly not my first time here.”
“Adam, when you look at a river, do you arrive at the conclusion that it flows on account of you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then don’t assume everything you see around you has anything to do with you. This place was here eons before you or I and will continue to be after we have moved on to other, well, things.”
“So a creation in my subconscious, in my own dream, is telling me that my own dream isn’t a dream?”
“If that is what you choose to believe, and it helps you get through the day. It is wrong I might ad.”
“You are a very peculiar man.”
“I would try and explain how many ways that comment is incorrect but I don’t have that much time. Adam, you have announced your presence. Others have noticed. They will seek you out for both the good and the bad.”
It hit me like a bolt of lightning, “How is it that you don’t have a Darkness?”
“I do, I just choose not to show it all the time.”
“You can do that?”
“I can. You cannot. Remember, Adam, they are coming.”
Authors Note:
Thank you for reading the A Darkness. I hope to continue this series as I have found I really enjoy Adam and exploring his world. If you enjoyed the story, please take a few minutes to review the book online at your point of purchase. If you didn’t like it drop me an email at Author.D.E.Peters@GMail.com and tell me what I could do better or to simply say ‘howdy’, I try to respond promptly to all emails. Thank you for allowing me to show you the world of Adam Carter and hope to see you in the second novel.
Edges of blue with sprites of gold and silver. Smears of blue and gold ripple out from the core. The ripples fade into a calming ocean of black-mercury.
A special note to those who speak Lakota (or spent more time than I did on Google): I apologize from the bottom of my heart if I completely butchered your language. The difference between English and Lakota is fairly important to a few scenes in the book. If you are fluent in the language, and would like to see it corrected please email me at the above address. I would love to know that what I have in the book is correct, even if there are few (if any) of my readers that will ever know this. Of all the writing that went into this story, that section caused me the most angst.
Table of Contents
A Darkness
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Authors Note:
Table of Contents