The Darkness Comes; Overwhelming Evil

Knowing what evil is can help when hunting it. But sometimes, to know evil, is to dance with it





 



The Darkness Comes

 

    Dan and his wife just put the kids to bed but knew it would be a while before they really went to sleep.  His day was long but successful and he was looking forward to the company of his wife.  Dinner was hectic as usual with most of the food ending up on the floor as it usually does with twin three year olds.  Being three was bad enough but add on that both were boys who loved to hang on every word their father uttered no matter what it was about made them unmanageable at the dinner table.  The only saving grace was the 8 year old first love of Dan and Monica’s Life, Ginger.  She oozes cuteness from her every pore.  Barbie dolls and Ponies ruled her life and without fail Santa always had to bring something pink or fuzzy much unlike the hammers and plastic army men of the boys.  She came along early in their life.  At sixteen neither of them were ready but they made it work.  And now, 8 years later with two 3 year old boys and their lovely daughter nothing could be better than what they have. 

Putting all the children to bed was a lot of effort and usually only took two hours or so. An eternity if you ask me but normal for the Jeinks.  The ritual they just entered into is as old as the boys and as stressful as giving birth.  To do that every night, I applaud them for not skipping town long ago.  But the night is only as long as you make it, that was Dan’s favorite saying.  Instead of focusing on the children’s crying for another glass of water, something more to eat or just for one more good night kiss he focused on the sweetness of his daughter’s smile or the doe eyes of his twin boys.  That was enough for him. 

But all that is coming to an end.  The curtain is making one final call for Dan and his well managed and sweet family. The darkness is upon them.  Creeping in through the foundation of their west Las Vegas home.  The evil intentions of man is at times something that you can feel, but when true evil creeps upon you and sneaks up behind you like a bully on the playground.  Knowing it is there is an art.  An art that most humans don’t even know exist.  We are oblivious to the cold and the shiftless until they are upon us.  Not even the intuitive can smell it’s aura.  Churches and religions are acquainted with it but have no true knowledge of the depth of its roots. Its origins we can only guess at and its motivations are as unclear to us, as that of an octopus.  It feeds and hunts but in ways and for reasons that can only be deciphered by gods and demons.  Dan has no chance of protecting his family.  He has no chance of keeping them safe.  Nothing that he can do will keep the evil from descending upon his home, well almost nothing.   

Dan heard the familiar cry of Tim, one of the twins, coming from the hallway. 

         “Daddy! Daddy! I need a Drink!”

And on queue Dan got up and walked down the hall to see his son.  Stopping on  the way to pick  up a small cup from the bathroom, filling it with water.  Dan Smiled to himself and began concentrating on his memories of his sons as if to cement them in his mind.  Soaking up every cry and whimper made in an effort to keep from actually going to sleep.  For to Dan, it was better than any music ever created. 

         “here you go, now go to sleep”

he said as he entered the blue shag carpeted room with blue walls.  Dan and his wife felt that blue might calm the boys down so they went all out.  Painting the walls a dark ocean blue to contrast the deep blue of the shag carpet.  Nice as it was, it just didn’t work.  With all the blue up and down the walls it was just too much.  And so the next project was born.  “Annihilate the BLUE!” was his wife’s mantra every time they talked about what to do to the house next.

  “Mom and dad need to get some time to ourselves.  Now be a good boy and go to sleep, ok.” Dan whispered while rubbing Tim’s tiny head taking in the softness of every strand of his son’s thick brown hair.

Tim looked at his dad with his big brown eyes which made Dan’s heart melt.  He tucked him in kissed him on the forehead along with his teddy bear and left the room.  Quietly closing the door behind him. 

He almost made it to the living room when Tom yelled for a drink too.  It was his turn after all.  Dan just smiled and turned back into the bathroom for another small plastic cup.

But in his living room the happiness was waning.  It didn’t get cold, like in the books and movies.  In fact it might be best explained as just the opposite.  Most people chalk up these feelings as just being tired or lack of a good meal.  In fact it could almost be mistaken for a sickness like diabetes or low blood sugar, but the accompanying feeling of dread makes those illnesses seem like a mild case of boredom.  Dan’s wife, Monica, began to get so upset inside her mind that tears began to well up in her eyes.  If she would have been able to just think about it for a second, she would have realized that nothing really was wrong and life is beautiful and not bad at all.  But, that’s the way evil works.  It makes sure that you are ready for it to come calling.  For it cannot do its dirty work if you are not a willing participant.  And that isn’t a problem, it knows exactly what to say.  It knows what each of us needs to hear and Monica is listening, she hears him loud and clear. 

Outside the house, on the porch, a man has come to rest.  Standing in front of the door; waiting for it to open.  His features are clouded with what seems like a mist of black and pale pink making him in-descript and unrecognizable other than to know that he is a man.  His leather coat fitting him tightly covering him to his waist.  Dark blue jeans fit even tighter than his jacket keeping to his form all the way to his ankles where the black motorcycle boots are uncovered to show the wear and rough treatment they have received from all the other times the were taken on a journey that is just like the one they are on tonight.  His hair is long but short.  His appearance never changing but changing nonetheless.  As he begins to concentrate on his task, the mist starts to wane from his eyes. His now uncovered brow tells of the concentration he is straining to maintain.  Staring into the door like he was willing it with his soul to open or burst or explode so he could enter. 

She broke from her tears for just a moment, but not to clear her mind.  It was from the thought put there by the Evil outside her door.  His thoughts clear and distinct from her own but controlling her feelings nonetheless.  He forced himself upon her.  Still standing outside her door he pushed through and yelled into her mind;

“It would be better, everything would be better”

The thought beamed into her mind like a spotlight.  It focused her on the lie.  It made her reality shift from a happy housewife to a brutalized woman on the brink of insanity.  It grabbed her mind and crushed it under the weight of despair and darkness.  Causing her to hate and despise everything around her.  It consumed the love for her children and husband focusing all her rage on them.  But she did have a chance, If only she were to think of some truth that she could hang on to.  Something like a birthday, or her wedding or even waking up to see the sweet eyes of her lover.  Then maybe she would be saved.  But his hold is too great, his power and experience too vast to be broken by a fleeting sense of family or devotion.  His expertise is highly honed and created by moments like this.  He has been hunting this way for so long that no one could push back from the edge that he has taken poor Monica too.  Now he is in control.  He has complete power over her mind.  The thought he has given her is now ravaging her soul, overwhelming her consciousness.  This thought is not one of her past or present, but one of how she was suffering.  Suffering by the hands of her children, her husband.  This thought that he has spent years refining is now inflicting a suffering that is so overbearing and real that only drastic action could change it.  Action that Monica does not and could never possibly know how to take is the only way to make her happiness return and fend off the evil. 

Regardless that her real everyday life is a dream that only most of us could imagine.  Evil has taken hold and delusion has settled in.  Her thoughts whither into darkness and confusion.  Thoughts of never ending screaming and complaining.  Meals that will have to be made and cleaned up after just in time to go to bed and start all over again.  The fact that every day she is required to spend her money that is meant for her forcing her to spend it on selfish children and an inconsiderate husband.  Or at least that’s the thought the he wants her to have.  For he knows.  He knows that at the root of all humans is selfishness.  That makes it so easy for him to control those he chooses as his prey.  To make them turn inside themselves and wanting it all for themselves until they scream inside their heads the words;  “that was mine and you will pay for taking it from me!”  He, the evil, has Monica screaming those words to herself now.  He has placed into her head a blackness and a chaos that would destroy even the most well adjusted of us.  He knows he has control over her and the instant has come for him to feast.  His voice boomed inside her head devouring anything that was left of her will to fight.

“It is time.  Open the door Monica”

Dan felt the heat enter the house as he slowly shut the boys bedroom door for the second time that night.  He thought once more of his boys and his daughter.  How wonderful it is to have such beautiful people around him.  He reveled in the love he just received and gave to his two sons while taking one last long breath into his lungs, indulging in the smell of his two boys on the other side of the door who are just now nodding off to a long night of boyish dreams.  He turned to walk back to the living room taking his steps slowly, letting the carpet mingle between his toes feeling each strand as he walked.  His thoughts have taken him to a world of happiness and distraction.  So much so that he did not notice the man the man in his living room, holding his wife.  She lay limp in his arms, still half standing, with her head fallen limp and her hands dangling to each side.  The man looked up at Dan, His facial features still covered in a sea of mist disfiguring his looks.  Dan Looked hard at him but only his eyes were distinguishable the rest of his face darkened and blurred.  The Man’s Light blue eyes pierce through Dan’s soul.  Tearing through him, capturing Dan in his thoughts.  He tried to run towards his wife to fight the man in his living room but Dan found himself stuck, unable to move or flinch.  Unable to move, all Dan could think of was his wife and children, how much he loves them.  Staring into the man’s eyes Dan began to realize deep down in his mind that he was not going to make it.  He was frozen in time and all he can do now is watch .  He knows he is going to die and resigns himself to the reality of his end being upon him.  He fights off the instinct to be swallowed by the miserable despair most people succumb to when they are confronted with death and turns his thoughts to his family and their love.  Just as if it were out of a moment in a modern movie he begins to think back on his memories he so long has cherished.  The birth of their daughter, and the love she casts upon them with her dolls in their pink dresses and her rosy cheeks when she smiles, the marriage to the woman of his dreams, his boys that forever worship their father following him around everywhere he goes imitating his every move.  He allows his love to flow over him and push through his fingers and toes encompassing every part of his being.  If this is going to be his last moment on earth, he was making it one of the best moments anyone could imagine.  Then came a bright flash and pain. 

Waking in the street, confused and foggy, Dan realizes that a Paramedic is trying to keep him still. 

“Don’t Move Sir!  Help is on the way!” 

The exited man in a short sleeve shirt orders Dan in a loud stern voice.  But Dan wants to escape his grasp so he can sit up and see what has happened and where he is.  His head begins to throb with pain and his knee screams out to him in agony.  Dan begins to grunt as the realization of the injuries begins to make themselves known.  Eventually, at the insistence of knee, Dan’s grunts begin to turn into groans of pain and then to cries of agony as the reality levels upon his broken and mangled body.

“Don’t move Sir!” he yelled at Dan this time.  “You’ve been in a bad accident! If you keep moving you’re going to hurt yourself more!” 

The paramedic yells as he takes a needle and sucks out a predetermined amount of liquid from a container just out of Dan’s sight. 

“Hold on sir!  I am going to give you something to help.”

The paramedic puts the short needle of the syringe into the small receptacle protruding from the plastic tubing attached to a vein in Dan’s Arm.  He pushes the plunger and a second later Dan’s pain dulled and his body warmed.  The feeling of urinating upon himself was strong as the pain started to wane.  But before he could check to see his eyes dim and again Dan is asleep.  Too bad for Dan that his dreams didn’t come to him while he out cold from the morphine or whatever damn thing that paramedic gave him.  It might have given him something to hold on to. 

At the hospital, Dan was wakened after hours of surgery.  Time that he never knew he had was now gone to the oblivion of a chemical stupor.  Time that he would have been better off dreaming of pink dolls and hammers.  Now it all starts to haunt him again, reliving the nightmare he just lived through.  Was his wife alive?  His Children?  He Looks around the room to no one.  The curtains are drawn and all he sees is a few medical devices and a black TV that appears to be floating on the wall.  He tries to yell out but cannot.  Pain comes from his throat as he begins to try and yell.  His heart rate begins to speed, breathing is next to impossible.  To Dan it was like drowning yet he could not get relief. 

“Dan!  There’s a Tube in your throat helping you breath.  If you try and fight it you will hurt yourself.  Try and calm down”  A black woman in blue medical smocks says to him as she bursts into his room. 

“you’ve been in a bad Car accident and your in the hospital.  You’ve been hurt pretty bad.  You stopped breathing earlier and we had to intibate you.  Try and remain calm and I will get the Dr to help.” She said as she put her hand on his arm to try and console him.  Her hand warm and strong helped but as she was a stranger, he still resisted his breathing tube. 

Then a man in a Polo shirt and jeans walked into the room and started to unplug the apparatus from Dan’s breathing tube

“I’m going to take this out, When I do I want you to cough, ok, shake your head if you understand.”

Dan shook his head and what he presumed to be a Dr pulled on the tube causing Dan to cough and gag.

“ok, Dan, I want you to take a deep breath” the Dr said as he put the stethoscope into Dan’s bare chest.  “Sounds good, I think you won’t be needing that anymore.  We almost lost you in surgery.  You have had a very bad accident and we had to remove your spleen and repair your leg.  It was severely broken at the knee.  You also have a severe concussion.  We put in a rod in your leg to help it heal so you won’t be able to get up for a couple of days at least.  You should”

Dan cut him off, not wanting to hear about the injuries to himself.

“My Wife, My Children! Are they ok?  The man, he came in and… and… That’s all I can remember.”  Dan was struggling to remember what happened next while at the same time he was struggling with his restraints meant to keep him from further injuring himself.

“Dan,” said the DR.  “I don’t know about your family.  I do know that you were drinking and crashed your car.  It was bad.  You were thrown from the car.”

“NO!” screamed Dan cutting off the Dr again.  “A man attacked us in our home!  He killed my wife!  Oh god…NO!” Dan now was beginning to fall into a deep panicked despair, writhing in his hospital bed, knocking things over on the table next to his bed.  “Where is my family. Where is my family?!”

As Dan was screaming the Dr and the Nurse began their work putting more chemicals into Dan’s arm, once again taking him to the black sleep where dreams don’t exist.  Untill he was awakened once again.  Dan woke to see another woman helping him.  Telling him that it was ok and that he is doing better.  Dan tried to move but realized that he was shackled to his bed.  The restraints thick and fuzzy were tight on his arms. 

“Dan” said a voice from the other side of the room “I am officer Jason Quail, I have a few”

Dan cut him off “where is my family? Someone Killed my wife!  He broke into my house and killed her!  I saw him! What about my Children?  Where are they?!”

“Sir” Jason sternly cut him off.  Dan looked at him wanting to know..  Waiting for the news of his children and his wife.  “You were drinking and had an accident.  You family died in the crash.  I am here to get your statement. Do you remem...”

“NO! That’s impossible!  A man broke into my house and Killed my wife!”  the realization of his children being dead hit him.  He became silent.  Dan Starred at his broken leg with its metal coming out of his skin.  Nothing seemed important to him anymore.  Just the shock of the moment ruled his mind.  His children, gone, his wife…  “no. I wasn’t drinking, I wasn’t even driving.  My home was broken into and a man was standing in the..  in the..”  Dan was sure of what he saw, or was he.  The memories started to fade his mind was beginning to feel like everything was melting away.

“I’m sorry sir,” said Jason.  “But that’s not what happened.  You had a blood alcohol of 1.5 percent.  You hit an oncoming vehicle and you were thrown from the car.  Your wife died on the scene as well as your children.  The collision also killed the driver of the other vehicle.”  Jason sat down on the chair in the corner of the room, crossed his legs over the knee and looked at Dan. 

“You have been in the hospital for three weeks and they are going to discharge you in the next couple of days.  When they release you I am taking you to the county jail for processing.  Do you have anyone you want me to call?  Do you have an attorney?”

Jason looked at Dan for a few more minutes but Dan seemed no longer coherent. 

“I guess that’s it” said Jason turning his head toward the pretty blonde nurse. “when will he be discharged?”

The nurse looked at Jason in the eye as if to judge his character. 

“Well, he has been out for a while, and with that head injury it’s hard to say if reality is with him.  I’ll check with the Dr and let you know, do you have a card with a way I can contact you?”

“Sure Do” Jason took a gold case from his Pocket and extracted the shiny blue and white business card handing it to the nurse.  “please, call when you guys are ready.  We’ll send an ambulance to come and get him.”  Jason smiled at the Nurse trying to catch her eye and left.

Dan lay in his bed, trying to remember the events of that night.  But nothing was coming to him. With one twitch of the man’s wrist Dan has been flung far from the world in which he loves Into a well of loneliness and despair.  And now something worse than his death is now in charge of Dan’s life.  What kept him from dying is gone and if only the man would have stayed till Dan woke, he could have devoured him too.  But evil is smarter than that.  He knows when the advantage is lost and when it is time to leave the injured and diseased to die from their wounds. 

Now that Dan is better, his leg has healed and his scars are red and proper.  The physical pain is gone now, but the memories remain.  If only he could trade one for the other, how much of a relief that would be.  Fifteen Years in prison is his Burdon for that night.  An eternity to suffer the loss of his loves.  Most days he spends sitting alone in his cell, never going outside.  Dan didn’t put any effort into his defense.  He let his court appointed attorney do whatever he wanted.  Sitting silently in his chair throughout his trial, much as he is now.  Spending each day to himself.  Dan tries to remember the moments of that night. It preoccupies him now just as it did during his short and damning trial.  In fact it is actually worse now, sitting in a cell confined to his thoughts.  It rules his waking moments, torturing him for hours at a time.  He racks his brain attempting to summon up the face of an evil that was intent on not being remembered, detaching him from reality.  Eventually Dan begin his research.  Learning about the evils perceived and just whispered about by humans like us who allow such beings to walk with them every day of their lives, never letting themselves notice the strangeness and brutality of a breed of humanity hiding in plain sight.  If we could open our eyes and see the true evil walking next to our children.  Teaching them, taking care of them.  You see, there are as many of them as there are of us.  Some with powers unrecognizable and so evil that their existence is forcibly ignored by the normal.  Dan is about to learn of them.  He has, after all, fifteen years to find them.  To learn to hunt them.  To live with them. 

 







 







Continued in Overwhelming evil : finding evil