Dakness (standard:horror, 1738 words)
Author: Finn McKool	Added: Apr 18 2003	Views/Reads: 3518/2325	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story about fear personified. But then, aren't they all? Needs revisions, I know. Be kind, gentle reader.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

darkness was vanquished.  But there was nothing there.  Not a thing.  
Not even his son. 

The cops same and did their little shuffle.  The detective in charge was
Rosetta Stone and she was what her dad called "bumfuzzled."  It was the 
perfect locked door mystery.  If only Sherlock Holmes were here.  All 
the doors and windows were locked and secured and latched from the 
inside.  The Hachneys were a very careful family.  They'd been robbed 
eight times at their last home, according to the father.  Not only that 
but the scream.  The dad heard a scream, or a part of a scream he said. 
 If the kid had been running away (which seemed likely by the shiner 
the wife was sportin')why would he scream?  Maybe he scared himself in 
the dark.  Except the dad said he had responded immediately, meaning 
the kid would have to unlatch, open the door, then close it and lock it 
back again with out the father hearing him, which he says he didn't.  
So was there really a scream?  Well if it had been just the father she 
would have said probably not.  But the mother heard it to, and also 
didn't hear anything after the scream.  There was also the question of 
the locked doors.  Both the back door and front door were chained shut 
as well as locked.  After all, eight times in one year is a lot.  It 
just didn't add up.  I say Holmes, old boy?! 

A couple of nights later, Mike went out to the Waterhole.  Shirley and
he had fought over it.  He just walked out this time when he felt his 
hand raise to hit her.  He wasn't in the mood.  Not after Shawn.  Sure, 
the kid had needed some toughening up but still that was his son.  His 
SON!  Hell, that was what dad's were for.  To build character in their 
sons.  Even if his son was a pansy Mike had still loved him.  Jesus, it 
broke his heart to see that his son was a pansy!  But now his son was 
gone.  He had disappeared off the friggin' face of the earth.  The 
story the cops told him about Shawn running away, and how he just 
scared himself in the dark, and how he'd turn up just didn't wash.  He 
doubted that story most sincerely.  And he suspected the cops did too.  
It was those damned locked doors that did it.  No matter how you worked 
it you couldn't work past those doors, locked and latched from the 
inside. 

By four in the morning he was home.  The house was pitch black.  Christ.
  What a way to run a railroad.  He'd call that woman a whore and worse 
but he was a Christian.  He stumbled in and hit the livingroom light.  
He stumbled to the bedroom and as the light spilled into the room he 
heard that cursing hiss.  His blood ran cold. "Shirley?"  he meekly 
asked.  He flipped the switch and the bedside lamp magically sparked to 
life.  He walked the house, turning on lights, calling to his wife.  
But she wasn't there.  And worse still, every time he hit a light he 
heard that blood-chilling hiss. "Guess I'm gonna hafta call a 
‘lectrician."  he said to himself.  But the sober part of his mind, 
buried under a deep, alcoholic haze, sincerely doubted an electrician 
could help. 

Oh well.  He was too drunk to deal with it now.  He turned off all the
lights of the rooms he was in like his daddy taught him, and sat in 
front of the TV  Man, his daddy was nuts on saving electricity.  One 
time his momma left a light on, unnecessarily, and daddy hit her so 
hard she flew across the room.  It looked like she had tried to fly.  
Daddy said he had just "...corrected her.  Just needed a little home 
correction,  that's all."  The TV emitted the only light.  It softly 
played with the shadows, flickering, and every time it did the shadows 
changed.  This hypnotized Mike sort of.  It became much more 
entertaining than the crap on TV  He began to doze.  He snapped awake.  
He heard that damned hissing.  And now drums.  Drums that beat so 
softly so perfectly in time with his heartbeat he thought it might have 
been.  But it wasn't.  He also noticed the light was fading.  It was 
like a curtain was being drawn down the screen of the TV  The same with 
the light coming through the windows.  He stared stupidly, but when the 
drums got louder he ran for his room. 

He flipped on the lamp and locked the door.  He could see it at the
bottom of his door.  It was no longer the absence of light, the spot 
where his lamp's 100 watt light ended and the shadow of the door began. 
 No.  It was alive and hungry.  The hissing got louder and so did the 
drums.  He scoured the room with his eyes trying to find where it could 
be coming from because it sounded like it was getting closer.  But he 
couldn't possibly see where it was coming from.  It traveled through 
the electrical outlet in the basement, up the walls, in wires, through 
the cord, into the lamp until it reached the bulb.  The hissing and 
drums grew to a deafening, thunderous level when the darkness burst 
through the bulb, exploding, instantly, into the room.  Mike had time 
for a short scream, but it was cut short. 

Soon the house was consumed.  It slithered into the yard.  It came
dangerously close to the neighbors house when the sun rose.  It's 
purple tendrils and beams of hope came reaching from the east.  The 
darkness shrieked in horror and pain, cracking glass, disturbing 
dreams, interfering with TV and radio signals, and stopping clocks.  
The house was gone.  The extent of the darkness' tendrils was etched in 
the division of the yard between what was there and what wasn't.  A 
tricycle sat in the remotest corner of the yard.  It was missing a 
wheel now.  It was all gone.  The darkness had borne it all away.


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