Darkness

Darkness

Sleep: a place to escape the pain of real life, a place where your dreams come to life.

Or it was once. Now the horrors of what is to come are thrust upon me, my pain to come is made real. My dreams are threatening to destroy my sanity, one thread at a time and there is nothing I can do about it.

He has returned, no, not a ‘he’, an ‘it’. I can’t, in any rational sense of the word, call it a ‘he’, the spectre who is haunting my dreams and my waking world. He has come to me again, to show me the coming death and pain. Even here on the moors, a place where I felt safe, a place of childhood innocence and enjoyment, it comes to me. This cottage I came to as a child with my parents before they died, a place I thought she would be safe. I was wrong. My God, I was wrong! I shouldn’t have come here, and I shouldn’t have brought her.

I dreamt of it last night, I was on the moors, the moon, bloated in the night sky. Said moon cast the only light in the otherwise dark depths. I followed it, that cursed figure, its black cowl pulled tightly over its face. I followed it across the rolling moors, feeling the cold droplets of water in the sparse grass as I walked in my bare feet. The dying trees reached their dry branches into the sky with sorrowful lament as the wind hissed through them. My heart grew heavier with every step I took after the cowled figure, the spit in my mouth drying until my mouth felt full of cotton wool.

As I gained on the figure the screams started, screams of pain and fear. My heart jumped from its standard resting place into my throat. I ran, my chest heaving and my breath hot in my lungs. I ran as if the hounds of Hell were at my heels, I ran as if my life depended on it. I recognised the screams; I recognised the voice screaming its death throes. I wish I didn’t but I did. As I ran to the top of the rise the screams stopped, the ensuing silence more painful to me than hearing her screams. Down the opposite side of the rise, it stood, its back to me. It looked down at the ground, at the small body lying at its feet, the broken and twisted shell. The blood covering the thin, rocky soil disappeared as it hungrily drank, like some obscene muddy vampire. The once pretty face was twisted in a cruel, rigor mortis snarl, the blood sticking as it dried into a congealing mass of gore. Then the screams started again, full of pain and anger, loud and wretched. I stared, not understanding how the screams could be, how such a thing could ever scream again. But the screams were not coming from this crushed body, they were mine. My screams, my screams of horror. I knew the body; I knew that pitiful sight at the bottom of the rise. I could never mistake the sight of my own daughter.

Aeryn, beautiful, so much like her mother. Her blue eyes and light brown hair. The former from her mother and the latter my only addition to Aeryn’s genetic make up. She was only six, yet had faced so much. The death of her mother, the deaths of her grandparents, leaving all that she had known. I have brought her to her death and yet she still loves me with that unquestioning feeling a child has for their parent. There is nothing more amazing than that, the way a child can forgive almost anything of their parents, but if she ever knew, knew that I was responsible for her mother’s death. That because of the simple fact of Elizabeth being my wife, my daughter lost her mother. I had to watch her heart break, a total lack of understanding of death, all she knew was that her mother wasn’t there to sing her to sleep, to hold her when she had bad dreams, to heal her accidental scrapes. She began to recede into herself. All day she would sit and play with her dolls, creating an imaginary world, where mothers lived forever.

I awoke screaming, shouting her name. I bolted from the bed, running to my daughter’s room. I burst through her door scaring her from her slumber, her fear evident on her face. Her blue eyes wide and panicked. Relief washed over me like the rejoining of the Red Sea. She was still alive, I still had time. I gathered her up into my arms and hugged her, talking soothingly until she slept once more, I lay her back in the bed. There was no way I was going to leave her now, pulling a chair from the kitchen I placed it beside her bed and settled down to await the approaching dawn.

As she slept I allowed my mind to think on the past. Thinking back to the beginning, the point at which my whole life became tainted. My parents, that was where it all started. The death of my parents, officially a climbing accident. My parents, the adventurous duo who loved walking in the hills and moors, hence the cottage here. My father was a doctor and my mother committed herself to the life of a housewife. They were always there for each other so perhaps it was fitting that they died together. They were married at the ages of eighteen and seventeen, my father studying medicine at the university where my mother’s father taught. Deeply in love they married against my grandfathers wishes, a fact that was not resolved as my grandfather died of a heart attack not long after the wedding. I was only fifteen when my parents died. The official inquest found that they had died in a tragic climbing accident in which both fell to their deaths from a cliff. The conclusion drawn was that my mother had fallen and in a rescue attempt my father had slipped and also died. However, I know this to be wrong. You see I saw the truth, in my dreams, as I would fifteen years later when I witnessed the death of my beloved Elizabeth. The cowled figure got them. The bastard who has haunted my dreams for years, showing me what he intends to do to those I love, the destruction he reaps upon there bodies. He has taken my parents, Elizabeth’s mother and my wife and now he is coming for Aeryn.

The first dream started two weeks before my parents’ death. Sleep had been slow to come for several days before that night, but on that night I slipped into the dream realm as easy as an experienced thief into an unguarded building. Little did I know the horrors that awaited me. I was in the hills that I had sometimes walked with my parents, the same hills my parents were due to travel to for a short break. My parents were leaving me at home, trusting me to be left alone for the first time.

It was dark; the stars shining brightly, no moon adorned the sky. I saw my parents lying at the bottom of a crevasse, their arms and legs bent at impossible angles, their blood mingling on the rocks beneath them. I awoke that that night with a scream locked in my throat, dripping with sweat. My mind played over the image of my dead parents. I got no more sleep and instead climbed down the stairs and went out to the back garden. I sat on the garden bench shivering despite the large coat I was wearing and the warm night. At school the next day I could not concentrate, all I good see was the terrible sight which had been shown to me.

That night I was afraid to sleep but knew I was too tired to stave it off. I retired to bed with a heavy heart, sensing the oncoming storm that would turn my life into a living nightmare. Yet again sleep stole over me quickly and within minutes I was back in the hills, but this time I was there at an earlier point. I heard sobbing, my mother, begging for mercy and my father angrily shouting yet the fear was evident in his voice. I ran towards the sounds of their voices, shouting for my father but he didn’t hear me or if he did he did not answer. By the time I reached the top of the cliff the voices had stopped and I was yet again rewarded with the view of my parents’ still warm corpses. As I drew in breath to scream I glimpsed movement from the corner of my eye. Surprise halted the shout, as I jolted round in the direction of the movement. At that moment I had my first glimpse of it. Standing six foot and dressed head to foot in black robes with a cowl over its face, it was the figure which would become my torturer. Raising its arm it uncurled one black gloved finger and held it to its lips in a mock gesture of silence. I once more drew in a breath to scream and I awoke. Yet again I made my way to the garden to contemplate the new development in my macabre nightmares.

You must understand, at this point I had no reason to believe this was anything but disturbing nightmares, brought on by my parents impending trip and my subsequent responsibility of being left alone. I sat in the garden and pondered the, undoubtedly, psychological meanings of my nightmares. Yet, at the same time, I could not shake the realistic aspects of the dream, the lucidity. I had never experienced anything like it but I didn’t for a single second consider the paranormal. I was brought up to think in a purely analytical mind. As my father was a doctor I was taught that everything had a logical reason, my father was a slave to medical science and he passed some of that scientific mind to me. My mind throughout the following day continued to wrestle with the disturbing dreams.

Once again I went to bed fearing the dreams but they did not come, I slept peacefully for several days with no nightmares. Slowly, as it does with any fifteen year old, my mind left the dreams and returned back to other aspects of my life – football, girls, studies and the excitement of having the house to myself for a week. Little did I know that I would have the house to myself forever.

Four days before my parents were due to go the dream returned, and it returned with a vengeance. Once more the stage was set, the moonless night, the bright stars and the high hills. As before I entered the world at a previous point to the last time I visited but closer to the ‘action’. My parents were setting up a tent near to a large cliff, chatting merrily, my mothers laughing at some silly joke of my fathers. They took many little breaks to kiss and hug, a couple still very much in love after twenty years of marriage. As I watched my mother moved closer to the cliff edge to admire the view awarded from such a great height. As I watched the figure materialised from the dark shadow of a nearby tree. It moved eerily fast towards my mother. I tried to shout a warning but my voice caught in my throat. The creature grabbed my mother and held her aloft. My mother shrieked in fright and started to struggle. My father hearing her ran and as soon as he saw the scene pulled up short. By this point my mother had ceased to struggle in fear of falling to her death and was sobbing and crying for mercy. My father shouted at the figure angrily demanding that my mother be released. The creature just stood facing my father, holding my mother above his head. Then deliberately he turned slowly and flung my mother to her death, her scream fading as she fell followed by a thud as her body broke apart. My father rushed at the creature bellowing in anger, shock and pain but it just brushed him back with one sweep f its hand. My father felt to the floor and lay there winded. The creature advanced upon his prone body and with little warning kicked him hard in the ribs. My father grunted in pain and tried to back away. He was kicked again and again causing him to cough up blood. When my father stopped moving the creature stooped over and picked him up. Carrying him as easily as a child the creature slowly moved to the drop. By this time my father was too far gone to put up any kind of resistance and as he was thrown from the top he managed to say one word. Only one word, a name. Anthony. My name.

I was brought back to the present as the sun filtered in through the blinds of daughter’s bedroom window. A scaringly pink bedroom, the walls, the carpet, the bedclothes, everything was some shade of pink. Decorated by posters of Sesame Street characters, Aeryn’s favourite character being Oscar the Grouch. A touch of my love of the different. I welcomed the sun with the strength of a priest welcoming God. The sunlight would be my daughter’s protector while I packed the car for our trip out. I had no idea where we would go but I knew we had to get away from here. The sunlight would keep the creature away but he would come at nightfall and then he would take her. I left my daughter to sleep, cuddled up to the Oscar stuffed toy which my wife’s mother had bought for her. Her last present to her beloved granddaughter, before it took her.

Before I started packing the car I went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. There would not be time for us to stop and have a proper meal as it would take most of the day to reach the nearest town. As I busied myself in the kitchen I thought of what had happened only three years ago and the strange conversation I had with Illiana, Elizabeth’s mother. The conversation I honestly believe caused her death. Illiana was a Russian who emigrated to America to be a nurse where she met my wife’s father who was working as a doctor at the same hospital. Elizabeth’s father died when she was young so Illiana played a big part in the lives of my little family. One night, after many drinks, I told Illiana the story of my dreams that led up to death of my parents. Her reaction to the story was not one I expected. The woman appeared to sober up and her face blanched, turning so pale I feared for health. She turned to me and asked me to describe the figure to her once again. I did so and her response chilled me to the bone. She told me of an old Russian legend about a figure that is alleged to be a foreteller of death, a figure just like I had described that appeared to people in their dreams to show them the deaths of loved ones and sometimes even themselves. She went on to explain that this demon (her own word) did not actually cause the deaths but would often be seen in dreams to orchestrate the death. She continued with the tale explaining that once the figure had visited a person it would come, again and again, every time a loved one was to die. She told me there were charms and incantations that could be used to banish the dreams but she would need to get the information from books she held at her own home. That night I dreamt again. I knew that Illiana was not coming back with the information. She was gone. The inquest claimed car accident but it was the creature. It knew what she planned. I don’t know how it knew but it did and it killed her to keep the information from me. She was decapitated; the car went off the road and hit a parked truck. There was no evidence of what decapitated her but she was. The inquest found accidental death.

Aeryn walking into the kitchen startled me. I looked at my daughter, my only link to a past that was irreparably damaged. He only thing I loved, the only thing I had left. She smiled up at me and asked for breakfast. I quickly fed her, and then left her to play while I packed the car. Half an hour later I picked up Aeryn and buckled her safely into the car. Climbing into the driver’s seat I looked at the cottage, I knew this was the last trip we would take to this place. I mentally said goodbye to the old building and to my parents. Looking at Aeryn I smiled and she smiled back. Her crooked little grin so much like her mothers that my heart ached. She asked where we were going, I told her we were going on an adventure. And we were, an adventure that didn’t have any plans except to put as many miles as possible between us and these accursed moors. Turning back to the steering wheel I reached for the keys.

And I touched empty air. The keys I had put into the ignition were gone. My heart sank; it wasn’t going to let us get away that easily. Apparently, it may not be able to take Aeryn during daylight but it could take my keys. Grabbing Aeryn I ran back to the house, to the phone. Picking it up I knew that it would be useless and I was right. Dead. My legs gave way and I slumped to the floor, Aeryn standing next to me, confusion in her eyes. After a few minutes I stood, muttering to Aeryn that everything was going to be all right. This did not convince her she looked at my and tears started to roll down her cheeks. She did not cry the way you would expect a child to cry. She did not make a lot of noise her chest did not hitch, she just ‘leaked’ from the eyes and even her sobs were muted. She had cried like this ever since the death of her mother. I had consulted doctors about it, worrying that this not the way a child should be but he suggested that it was simply exhaustion. She was simply too tired to cry with any degree of energy. I did not agree with this but did agree that a wait and see policy would be advantageous. Crouching I held my daughter, whispering nonsense promises into ear, more to soothe me than her.

We stood like that for some time, frozen in an almost statuesque fashion. Suddenly I let go, jumped up from my crouch and ran back to my car reaching through the door I searched my jacket pockets, looking for redemption. I did not find it at first, so I forced myself to calm down and go more slowly. Trying each of the pockets carefully I searched for it, my, our last lifeline. It wasn’t there, it was gone too. No, wait, there, underneath the passenger seat, the little green flashing light, our one last hope. I dived for it, grabbing it and holding it up madly like some idol. My mobile phone, the chunky old thing that my daughter laughed at. I dialled the emergency services, sighing in relief at the ring noise it made in my ear. Then it went dead.

I didn’t understand it, so close yet…… I looked at it, it had somehow switched off. Pressing the power button, the phone lit up only for the battery warning tone to sound. The lights went out, the phone died. Phone charger, shit, left at my office. I began to cry, all hope gone. It was going to get Aeryn and I couldn’t stop it. I walked back to the house, head down and shoulders slumped. The fear was making me shake. What was I going to do? I was out of ideas, how could I protect Aeryn? I had to think. I had to find a way to save her.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Aeryn played quietly in her room as I caught up on some, thankfully, dream free sleep. I awoke mid afternoon, and the first thing I did was check on Aeryn, I found her in her room. She was singing softly to herself, a song her mother often sang to her. She was singing to her doll, the tears rolling down her face once more. I asked if she wanted to play outside but she ignored me and carried on singing her song. I tried to hug her but she just hung there, limp and exhausted. The worry and fear imprinted on her face, as obvious as news print. She was picking up on my own feelings, the way her mother did.
Darkness began to fall early and I got Aeryn to bed. I dragged the armchair from the lounge into her bedroom and settled down for a long night. Aeryn didn’t even ask for a story, an event so unusual it was unheard of. I watched as she held on to Oscar and as the tears rolled down her cheeks from the bloodshot eyes. As I watched I was once more struck by her resemblance to her mother. The high cheek bones, the slightly crooked mouth and the beautiful blue eyes. I miss Elizabeth so much it is like a physical pain, an ache in my stomach as if there was a piece missing. The night the creature took her from me is permanently engrained on my soul. It was yet again arranged to look like an accident, an accident which mirrored the death of my parents. Although it did not happen in some wide wilderness there were other aspects which gelled. The falling from a great height, the apparent accident and the dreams. They followed the same as when my parents were murdered. They started a week before and each dream showed me more. They showed me more that I wanted to know. She was working, at the law firm where she was due to become a full partner. The offices were on the fifteenth floor and that was where it got her. She was unofficially celebrating with the senior partners. Her colleagues left and she was there alone waiting for a cab. The inquest concluded that she had drunk too much and wandered out onto the balcony. However, they did not take into account the waist high wall and they ignored my protestations that Elizabeth would never have gone out on that balcony. She was afraid of heights. She did not even like looking out a high window. I know it killed her I saw it in my dreams. She begged for mercy like my mother, she begged it for unforthcoming mercy. It coldly killed her. I had tried to warn her but she did not believe me. I should have tried harder.

I awoke. Oh my God I had fallen asleep; my reminiscence of my wife had turned to dreams. I looked to my daughter’s bed. Aeryn was gone. The bed was still warm, she was still near. I ran from the house, out on the moors. There, to the right. A small figure, white clothing moving across the sparse grass. I ran, calling for Aeryn, my doomed daughter. She did not turn nor even slow, there was no sign she heard me. I ran, the wet grass cold on my bare feet, the moon hung bloated in the sky and the tress moaned from the passage of the wind. She moved steadily away, my daughters feet appeared not to touch the floor, she hovered above the ground. I increased my pace and still did not gain. I was being led, led like a fool. As I ran I recognised the layout of the land, it was exactly like my dream, yet I would not give up, I would not desert Aeryn. As I ran she disappeared from sight over the rise from my dream. Just when I reached the top of the rise the screams started and my skin crawled, it had got her. I reached the top and looked down at my worst nightmare, the one that had become reality. Aeryn lay at the bottom of the slope her fragile body crushed beyond repair. Her blood, seeping from numerous wounds, stained her body and standing above her was the bastard who had brought so much pain to my life and to those I loved and still love. He turned to me; I could feel the unseen eyes burning into me, into my soul. The depth of the hatred in this figure was immense; it looked into my soul and cherished the pain within. I ran at that bastard, the unclean thing that had destroyed me. I ran at it to destroy it, not just to kill but to rip it to pieces, to tear it limb from limb. It stood waiting for me, arms at its side and I could feel its grin. I went for its cowl meaning to see the true face of the creature that had destroyed my heart and nearly my mind. I knocked it back from its face and froze. The face grinned at me, a malicious sheen in its eyes. My last thread of sanity snapped, I began to laugh and cry. The face staring back at me was me. It was the dark of my soul and it was that which I fell into, my own darkness.