Whispers From The Dark (3 page)

I sat down on an uprooted tree and surveyed the area once more, my eyes settling on the motionless tentacles as I turned the events I’d just witnessed over in my mind.

I thought about Walt, and Will. I thought about my father and his father before him, and just what they had done and lived with; what they’d seen in these woods and never spoken about.

I thought about the secrets we all keep.

And I cried. Jesus Christ, how I cried.

I was still crying when Walt’s dirt and blood crusted hand broke through the ground a dozen yards from where he disappeared a few hours earlier, followed from the earth a couple of minutes later by Will.

I was still crying when I shot them each in the head.

PUDDLES

Thank God for the drought.  It keeps their appearances to a minimum and doesn’t let them grow large enough to do too much serious damage.

I saw three of them just last Monday, swimming and thrashing around in a puddle in the Target parking lot.  A fat woman with a cart full of shit she didn’t need stared at me staring at the puddle and gave me a look of disgust.  But I kept her from passing through the water.  

It’s been a strange kind of drought.  It rains a couple of times a week, but it only lasts for an hour or so at the most.  Then the sun reemerges like a conquering warrior and evaporates all the puddles and all the squirming little grotesque things inside them.

The first time I noticed them had been the second rain of the summer, after a storm that appeared in the middle of a sunny day, dumped sheets of water on the earth, and vanished before anyone had time to even grab an umbrella or get inside out of the weather.

I had been in the park, enjoying the day.  On a weekday, the place is fairly empty, so nobody was around to see the splashing coming from the small pool of water that had gathered in a low spot on the sidewalk.

Nobody except for me.

It had only been one of them, gnashing its razor teeth and glaring at me with pure hatred through its pearl white eye while the sun reflected rainbows off its silvery flesh.

The little bastard had my full attention, and I didn’t see the jogger until she was a mere step from the puddle.

She screamed as soon as her foot broke through the surface of the water.

I couldn’t move; fear had paralyzed me.

The jogger fought, screaming in agony and staring at me in wide-eyed horror as she was slowly sucked down into the pool.  The water turned crimson, then black, and then she was gone.

Devoured.

I collapsed to the grass, trembling.

Within twenty minutes the summer heat had returned the water to the atmosphere, leaving only the pale, hard pavement.

Two days passed before I managed to sleep again.

A week went by and the rain came again.  I ran through the downpour, peering into every gathering pool for one of them.

I’m sure I looked like a madman.

Just as the rain stopped, I found four swimming together on the basketball court across the street from my apartment.

All I could do was stand guard until the water was no more.  I couldn’t let another person fall victim to them.  Luckily, no kids came to play basketball that day. 

Two weeks later and a man pushed me down and called me a “fucking weirdo”.

A puddle had accumulated underneath the door to his truck.  I swear I tried my best to convince him to stay away - to wait for the water to evaporate.  He told me I was crazy; that there was nothing in the rainwater except our reflections.

He never even managed to open his door.

I’ve spent the entire summer trying to warn people, keeping them away from any of the dangerous puddles.  For my troubles I usually get cussed, sometimes ignored.  Once I was punched in the jaw.  Four more people have been consumed by the one-eyed monsters, always in places where no one but me is around to see it happen.  Just my luck, of course.

I’ve had time to watch the ugly little things, too.  I’ve noticed that the bigger the puddle, the larger the creatures.  And the longer the water survives the summer sun, the stronger the beasts seem to get.

I think they want to escape from the puddles and I think that if they have enough time, that if it wasn’t for that wonderful jolly old sun, they just might manage to do it.    

But I’m getting nervous.

Summer’s ending, the days are growing cooler.

Next week’s weather forecast calls for rain every day.

THE DARK

“You don’t care at all if there’s nothing after we die?”  Bill asked with disbelief.

Robert shrugged.  “Not worth thinking about.”  He cracked open another beer, his tenth of the evening.  His words were starting to slur somewhat now.

“I mean like it was before you were born.  Nothingness.  Thinking about that doesn’t bother you at all?”

“I don’t think about.  It’s easier that way.”

“You’re a lucky fucker, then.”

“I think most people don’t think about it, man.  Hell, you just started worrying about it so much since…”  Robert’s voice trailed off.

“Since my Mom died,” Bill finished for him, nodding.  “I know.”

It was true.  One week after his mother died of cancer it had started.  He’d been watching an old horror movie and started imagining himself as the teenager who was being murdered.  Religion had always been hard for him to swallow; heaven and hell and reincarnation all seemed like wishful thinking.

It was far more likely that there was nothing.  Pure darkness; no consciousness or awareness.  Trying to wrap his mind around what that would be like, Bill had thrown himself into the grip of one hell of a panic attack.

“Maybe that’s why you don’t give a shit,” Bill said.  “You’ve never lost anybody.”

Robert shook his head.  “Nope.  That's not it at all.  I’m just more concerned with living my life than I am with dying.”

“Afterlife or no?”

“Look: It’s fifty-fifty.  It’ll be great if there is something.  I hope there is, for that matter,” Robert said.

“And if there isn’t?  If it’s just blackness…nothingness?”  Bill queried.

Robert took a long pull of his beer and turned the question around in his mind for a moment before answering.  “It won’t matter.  I mean… if it’s nothing, we won’t know.  Hell, it’s probably not that bad once you’re in it.  Darkness, I mean.  At least we don’t have to work and pay taxes.”

Bill rose from his seat, shaking his head.  “I wish it was that easy for me.  I gotta piss, then we’re gonna finish this conversation.”  He made his way down the hallway and into the bathroom.

As he stood over the toilet Bill fought hard to push the thoughts of death from his mind.  Talking about it was fine, but whenever he was alone he inevitably ended up trying to envision what it would be like to vanish into nothingness.  He turned his attention to the Rolling Stone cover in the floor, reading the headlines to occupy his mind until he was finished.

He returned to the room to find Robert slumped over on the arm of the sofa, a thin ribbon of drool glistening in the corner of his mouth and his beer still in his hand.

Bill shook his head and chuckled.  “So much for finishing the goddamn conversation.”

Grabbing another beer from the fridge, Bill switched off the overhead lights and sat down behind the computer in the corner of the living area of his small rental house.

He began to mindlessly surf through news sites, eyes flittering across the various bad news headlines and celebrity gossip stories before settling on a fluff piece about a beagle named Ringo who had woken up its owners in time for them to escape the fire that had engulfed their home.

“Ringo was his name-o,” Bill whispered.

Behind him, Robert started to snore softly.

Bill started scanning the headlines again when an instant messaging window popped up onto the computer screen, the dinging sound that accompanied it startling him.

hello

Was the only word in the window.  No screen name in front of it, no title at the top, nothing.  Just

hello

Bill stared at the word for a moment.  There were only a few people who had his screen name, and all of them opened their conversations with more than just a simple hello.

Onscreen three question marks appeared underneath the single word.

Curiosity claimed Bill as a casualty, and he typed:
hi

Almost immediately, a response came.

how’s it going?

who is this?  Bill typed.

how’s it going?

fine, I guess…who do you think I am?

been watching you awhile.

what?

i like you.  you’re…interesting.

what?

who is this?

nobody

Bill sighed and closed the window.  “Modern day prank calling,” he whispered as he took a swig from his beer.

The window appeared again on the screen along with a new message.

don’t do that again, bill

Bill’s heart fluttered at the sight of his name on the computer monitor.  Whoever it was knew his name.  His first thought was Tori.  She’d spent the last couple of weeks flirting with him in their advanced biology class, neither of them mustering enough to courage to ask the other out.  Maybe she’d gotten his screen name from one of their mutual friends and was now setting out to woo him in cyberspace.

Bill smiled at the thought.  He’d had enough alcohol tonight to take the simple flirting to the next realm and perhaps ask her on a date.  He set the beer down and began to type a reply, doing his best to remain coy.

how do you know my name?

i know a lot

did you hack my PC?

no

you said you’ve been watching me.

yes

where?

everywhere

school?

everywhere

Everywhere?  Something about that caused a disconcerting feeling to settle over Bill.  He wrote:
who are you?

nobody everybody I AM

“I am.”

Bill heard the last two words come from behind him, a barely audible whisper
creeping across the room at the exact same moment the words materialized onscreen.  He looked quickly over his shoulder and checked the room.  Other than him and Robert, it was empty.

He looked back to the computer, unease creeping through him.  Another quick glance over his shoulder reaffirmed his safety.  He was hearing things, thanks to the beer and the uneasy conversation he‘d just had with Robert.

He was no longer so certain it was Tori.  She didn’t seem the type to spend her evenings behind a computer playing strange and slightly creepy games.

Nevertheless, Bill was still curious.  It could be her; he didn’t know her all that well yet.  And it was someone he knew, obviously.  At any rate, whoever it was was managing to keep him entertained, if not a little uncomfortable.   

“Alright.  I’ll play along for a minute,” he said to the screen.

you know me
.  He typed

yes

how?

i know all

how?

i am all.  soon you’ll join me

Join me? Bill thought.  It had to be Tori.  Maybe she was drunk, having a laugh with her friends at his expense.  The nape of his neck tingled as the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching him crept into his mind.

He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder and scanned the room again. 

Satisfied that he and Robert were alone in the room, Bill wrote:
join you where?

here

where?

in the dark

Bill frowned at the statement.  The dark.  Blackness.   The thought of pure nothingness crept into his gut again, sending a chill through Bill‘s body.  He shook off the oncoming panic.  He wasn’t going to be unnerved by some jackass with too much time on their hands.

He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his beer, staring at the screen and wondering whether or not he should continue this or just give it up, turn off the computer, and go to bed.

ringo was his name-o.

Bill froze, can still pressed against his lips, beer growing warm in his mouth.  He swallowed hard, nearly choking on the beer.

They had heard him.  Somehow, they had heard him.

No, he told himself.  They may have hacked his computer, seen what sites he had visited and made an offhanded reference about it.  Coincidence, plain and simple. 

But still…this wasn’t right.

He’d known it in the back of his mind from the moment the first word popped onto his computer monitor.  But now, after indulging whoever was toying with him and his own curiosity, the fact was front and center in his mind. The back of his neck tingled with the growing sensation that someone was watching him. 

This wasn’t right.

“Fucking hell,” he said to himself.

you know nothing of hell
materialized in the chat window.

The breath caught in Bill’s throat as he sat staring at the words.

There was no question about it now.  Whoever it was could hear him.

“Jesus Christ.” He whispered so quietly he could barely hear the words himself.

died screaming for his daddy
  appeared on screen immediately.

He hardly had time to read the words when the hairs just below his scalp tingled as he felt someone close behind him, breathing on his neck.

Leaping from his chair with a scream Bill whirled violently, swinging a fist behind him but connecting with nothing.  There was no one in the room with him.