Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Read online

  He clambered up a hill, using exposed roots and jutting rocks for purchase, reached the top and looked over the area. He couldn’t see far, the sun was a mere whisper away from setting.

  Across a field at the bottom of the hill he saw a guard shack, a factory or warehouse behind it.

  It would have to do.

  He took off down the hill. The breeze felt good against his forehead, and he pulled up the tail of his shirt to let it caress his stomach as well.

  He breathed in deep, filling his lungs despite the razors that tore at his insides with every inhalation.

  The shack was further than it looked and it took nearly another half hour to reach, but when he did he thanked God for bringing him such a gift. It looked deserted, and the factory parking lot was empty. He approached the small building cautiously, listening for the clitter and clatter, for the taps or chirps. There was nothing but the wind blowing about his face and the sound of his own ragged breath.

  He crept to one of the windows slowly and silently. He peered through the dirty glass, cupping his hands around his eyes. There was a chair and a long counter with monitors and telephones and a computer, but not much else that he could see.

  Around the side of the guard shack, he found the door ajar. He nudged it open and let what little light the moon provided reveal what it would. Which was nothing.

  He let out his breath in relief and stepped inside. He didn’t touch anything, not until he could more fully discern there was nothing in here with him. He eased the door closed behind him, then sat down in the guard’s chair and collapsed forward onto the desktop and tried to hold in his vomit.

  After several minutes of dry heaving he looked up, looked around again, and realized he was too visible. He worked himself under the desktop where the monitors stood, then stretched out, letting his muscles rest and his feet get some air. He took off his shoes and socks, peeling them back where his blisters had broken and started bleeding. The circulation flowed and his feet sang praises of relief, but that just made them hurt worse.

  He laid his head on his arm and listened to the silence outside. If not for where he was hiding and the state of his body, he could almost fool himself into thinking nothing had happened, that all was calm and peaceful in the world. He wanted to pretend. Who would have thought the world could be turned upside down in so little time?

  ««—»»

  Kevin wasn’t much for the crotch rockets; he didn’t feel the need for speed. He just liked being out by himself, cruising along and feeling a nice breeze whipping past him. He rode a CVO Softail Convertible and he rode it alone, as he did most things, because the company of others tended to make him claustrophobic after too much exposure. So he’d learned a long time ago to enjoy things he could do by himself.

  This wasn’t to say he didn’t have friends, he had several. He had simply learned to keep them at arm’s length because sometimes he just needed solitude.

  Tonight was definitely one of those times. His boss had just come back from a week’s vacation, which Kevin had been covering, to tell him half the things he’d done—which Kevin had done from the notes his boss gave him—were wrong. Kevin’s opinion, however, was that he’d done everything right; his boss, a fat, smelly lump of nothing named Snyder, just didn’t tell him about the shortcuts he always took. And now here he was, riding along a road he’d never seen before, knowing only that it was far from home, far from work, and thus far from the bullshit of his otherwise lackluster existence.

  And then the bike chugged, coughed, and sputtered until Kevin managed to get control of the wheel and the brake and bring himself to a slow halt. The engine sputtered one final time, then died. He put the kickstand down, swung off the seat, and crouched next to the engine to see what was the trouble.

  It was dark. He could barely see the engine at all, let alone determine the problem. He heard something coming from inside it though, some kind of clack-clack, like the rustling of thick tissue paper. Was there a short circuit in the wiring somewhere?

  He leaned in closer, trying to see past the dark, but it was all just black shadows and moonlight-glinting chrome. But the thing that really confused him was how the shadows shifted. He put his head next to the engine, his ear close enough to feel the heat coming off it, and the clatter inside grew louder. Then something tickled the rim of Kevin’s ear. He swiped at the ear, then looked around, like something might be on him.

  Something tickled his ear again, then the other one, and the clack-clack from the engine was replaced by a buzz, and soon Kevin’s vision was blurred by a swarm of flies, dive-bombing his face, causing him to squint when they tried to fly into his eyes. He shook his head to get them away from his ears and nose, trying to swat at them with his hands, but they wouldn’t be stopped and soon Kevin was backing away from the bike as flies issued from the engine by the hundreds; if there was a space, a fly had taken it, and now they were moving out—right for Kevin’s head.

  He backed up across the road, tripped and fell, then rolled around in the dirt and grass, trying to treat the flies like fire and put them out. But they just hovered above him until he was done, then went in once he stopped.

  He got to his feet, looked around as best he could, picked a direction, and ran.

  ««—»»

  Doug’s seasoning mix was simmering, which gave him time to get the tomatoes and onions chopped while the shells were in the oven. He set the tomato on the cutting board, removed the sticker with the edge of his knife and a flick of his wrist, then the power went out.

  There was that brief moment where he could only think Huh? and then he set the knife down and went for the flashlight under the sink. Two other voices said, almost at the same time, “Power’s out!”

  “I kinda figured,” Doug mumbled as he headed for the basement door.

  The breaker box hung on a column of brick in the middle of the basement, behind the furnace, on the other side of an obstacle course of Christmas decorations, old toys, and busted furniture Doug hadn’t bothered to get rid of yet. He traversed the jungle, got to the breaker box, and opened it, shining the light on each switch.

  If there was a blown breaker, he didn’t see it.

  Then he heard the clitter and clatter above him. He pivoted the light overhead and the ceiling of the basement was covered in bugs—waterbugs, it looked like, maybe beetles—dozens of them. Doug backed up, as if this would keep them from raining down on him, nearly toppled over the Christmas tree box, then righted himself and moved away from the center of the room. How did he not hear that as soon as he came down?

  Didn’t matter. He shined the flashlight around the rest of the basement and saw they weren’t just on the ceiling. The bugs came through the floor and the back wall, which was dirt like the floor. A stream of them issued from the ground and hundreds of big black specks of exoskeletal nastiness scurried here and there. Doug darted up the stairs, pulled the door shut and locked it behind him, and went to get the boys.

  “Jason!” he called.

  His oldest son replied from upstairs, “What?”

  “Come down here for a second. Cory?”

  The younger of his two boys said, “What?” He was in the living room, sitting in the dark. That was Cory, calm in the face of the unknown, just waiting to see what happened.

  “You guys get your shoes and jackets and come help me.”

  “What’s up?” Jason asked, joining them in the living room.

  “Come on,” and he turned around, headed for the basement. His sons followed. Doug grabbed the broom from next to the refrigerator, handed Jason the mop.

  “We’re gonna knock them off the ceiling and crush em. Cory, you take the flashlight.”

  “Knock what?” Jason asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Doug opened the basement door and stepped down, but what he’d seen moments ago was nothing compared to what he faced now. Cory aimed the light into the darkness, but it wasn’t just a few dozen beetles and waterbugs, it was hundre
ds, probably thousands of them.

  They backed up and closed the door and everyone moved back into the kitchen.

  Doug supposed he’d call an exterminator, because he couldn’t imagine who else there would be to call for something like this. He’d never heard of an infestation this bad, not even on A&E. He found the listings, dug the phone from his pocket, and saw there was no signal.

  “That’s new,” he said. “Jason, you got a signal?”

  “No, it doesn’t look like it.”

  “Okay.” He scratched his head, closed the phone book and paced around the dining room table.

  “Did you see how many there were?” Jason asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got bug spray, that’ll do it, right?”

  “I don’t think one can’s gonna take care of all of them.”

  “It’ll help.”

  “Anyway,” Cory said, “they’re just bugs.”

  “Just bugs,” Doug echoed. He got the can from the top of the fridge, shook it to see how full it was. It felt almost new. He put his hand on the basement door, but hesitated. It didn’t feel right. They’re bugs, they’re inevitable, they’re everywhere, but that many? It definitely felt wrong. But, like Cory said, they’re just bugs.

  He opened the door and sprayed. Bugs fell by the dozens from the ceiling and doorway, the walls, and he stepped out onto the landing to crush them under his feet as he fought his way to the bottom of the stairs. By the time he got there he realized Jason and Cory were still at the top. He didn’t know if he’d expected them to follow or not, but he knew a few more feet doing the job would help.

  “Jason, I need the flashlight,” he called up the stairs, but when he turned around to look, he saw he’d made no progress at all. It didn’t matter how many he’d killed, they had the numbers to replace them and it seemed as if he’d not even made a dent. And now he was downstairs, in the dark, surrounded, with a can that was almost empty. He couldn’t see the stairs, nor the door at the top. He didn’t know if Jason had heard him.

  He was supposed to be eating tacos right now.

  Bugs fell from the ceiling, tangled in his hair, fell into his shirt collar, tickling his skin. He tried to shake like a dog and get them off him. That’s when the sheer number of them hit him. He didn’t understand why they were in his basement, why they were attacking him—and Doug knew this was an attack, simple as that—or why they’d chosen his house. What he did understand was that he had to get back upstairs. Never mind the power. He’d made a mistake coming down here, had greatly underestimated them. He charged toward the direction of the stairs, only to run face-first into the concrete wall. His nose throbbed and gushed blood. Doug brushed the bugs from his face, trying to clear his eyes and see where he was. He tripped over the stupid Christmas decorations again, felt bugs squish under his hands, and got to his feet. He felt their legs on him, then something like tiny points of fire burning into him, like a thousand pinpricks, and he knew they were biting him.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, fighting to get them off him, but there were just too many and the pain finally brought him to his knees.

  ««—»»

  His boys heard the scream upstairs. It overpowered the clicking of the bugs on the other side of the basement door, which Jason had closed when his dad went downstairs and he, Jason, saw the bugs were still coming. Cory jumped and looked up at his brother in the dim glow from the flashlight. Jason couldn’t find anything to say. Words of hope felt like a lie in his mouth.

  “Dad?” Cory asked.

  Jason moved to the door and leaned in, hoping to hear his father climbing the stairs, trying to open the door. He turned the handle, pushed open the door, but the flood of bugs that fell out answered his question. He leapt back, brushed off the few that had landed on him, and grabbed his brother’s arm.

  “Come on,” he said, and they ran out the front door.

  “What about Dad?” Cory asked.

  Jason couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but silence felt like ignoring it, and that felt like a betrayal.

  “I don’t think he’s coming up,” Jason said.

  “But you don’t know.”

  “No,” Jason said. “He’s not coming up.”

  “He’s hurt down there.”

  To that, he had no answer. Could he go to the police station? Or the hospital? He really didn’t know. But once outside and looking around, it appeared his wasn’t the only house with a problem.

  The neighbors a few houses down were all standing outside, staring back at their house, as if it had grown legs and tried to come after them. He dragged his brother down the street and asked them, “What happened?”

  The father—Jason didn’t know any of their names—looked over at him as if drugged, and said, “They just came out. There was a crack in the plaster in my daughter’s room, and they came out of it. They were in the walls. It was just a crack, but they came through and it got bigger. God, there were so many of them.”

  “So many what?” Jason asked, knowing the answer.

  “They were cockroaches,” the man said. “We never had cockroaches before,” he made sure to add. “Jesus, they were everywhere.”

  Jason and Cory went back down to their house and Jason told his brother, “Get in the car, I’ll be back.”

  He went inside to get the keys off the hook by the door, and found the floor was covered in bugs. They crawled and shuffled over each other in a macabre dance, vying for space. He had the flashlight in his hands, and hearing something from the kitchen, he shone it through the living room, across to the kitchen table, where he saw what remained of his father.

  Doug was swarmed in them, every inch covered, and in the glare of the light, Jason could see they’d eaten away chunks of his face, including both of his eyes. He was coming forward, finding his way by feel in the constant, shifting and creeping dark. Jason’s heart pounded and he wanted to throw up. Doug fell forward and when he didn’t get back up, Jason fought back a scream. He backed away and got the hell out of there, for his brother’s sake, if for no other reason.

  He got in the car and he and Cory pulled away.

  ««—»»

  “Are we going to get an ambulance?” Cory asked.

  “Ambulance for what?” Jason asked.

  “For dad.”

  That wasn’t something he wanted to talk about just yet. But Cory hadn’t seen him in those last few seconds, so he didn’t know how bad it really was for their father.

  “Um, we’re gonna try and find some help, yeah,” he finally replied.

  Jason wound the car through the streets, not really having a direction in mind, thinking in the back of his head they could go to their uncle’s house. They certainly couldn’t just drive around all night, and parking the car somewhere and waiting was no solution either.

  He’d only driven to his uncle’s house once, but he thought he knew how to get there. Uncle Dean lived out past the highway, all he had to do was take the Avenue out past the hospital, then turn.

  “We’re gonna go see if Dean’s home,” he told his little brother. Cory didn’t argue.

  The drive out didn’t assuage any of Jason’s trepidations; all was in darkness. No house lights, no streetlights, no traffic lights. Houses stood open to the world while people stood out on their lawns, or walked down the street in socks and shorts, whatever they’d thrown on after work that afternoon, families displaced and lost. Whatever was happening, it obviously wasn’t just Jason and Cory’s neighborhood. It looked like it was all over town. A lot of families were in their cars as well, but he didn’t know where they might be driving to. Was there some kind of shelter? He turned on the radio to see if there was any news, but heard only dead air.

  He checked his phone, but it still had no service.

  No phones and no radio meant no lines of communication. As bad as he’d felt just moments ago, Jason suddenly felt ten times worse.

  Then he almost hit a man running down the Avenue. Jason swerv
ed and slammed on the brakes, skidded, but maintained control.

  The guy ran over to the window, yelling something, but Jason was shaken and not paying attention. He rolled down the window a crack.

  “What?”

  “Let me in. Please. Get me out of here.”

  He looked over his shoulder, like something might be there.

  Jason hit the unlock button and the guy dove into the back seat. Jason pulled away and turned off onto Dean’s road.

  “You okay?” he asked the guy in the back.

  “No, not even close. What the holy motherfuck is going on?”

  “We don’t know,” Jason said. “What did you see?”

  The man told them about the flies that had clogged up his motorcycle engine, about taking off down the dirt road, approaching the first house he’d seen and knocking on the door.

  “Nobody answered, and the lights were out, but I heard something inside. Cupped my face over the front window and could barely see, but I could tell something in there was moving.

  “It was bugs, man. A million of ‘em. Crawling all over everything. God, the sound they made; there were so many of them all at once, I could hear it outside.”

  “Where was this house?” Jason asked.

  “Just up this road, big white house.”

  “Was there a boat?”

  Jason wasn’t familiar with this part of town, only knew his uncle lived out here. He couldn’t remember how many, if any, neighbors Dean might have. It might not be Dean’s house this guy was talking about, but Jason knew his uncle had a boat.

  “Yeah yeah,” the guy in the back said. “Boat, parked over on the side.”

  “Is that Uncle Dean’s house?” Cory asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “What does that mean,” the passenger asked.

  “Means we’re not going there. And if not there, I don’t know where else to go.”

  ««—»»

  So they drove, and introductions were finally made. Jason wasn’t as familiar with the streets as he wished he had been. He didn’t know where he was going, but everywhere he went the sights were the same.