Encountering Darkness Page 6

  As Pete thinks to himself, he hears a voice around him.

  “I can help you both. All you have to do is follow me. You both look scared and I'm sorry for that, but just follow me. Everything will be okay.”

  Pete hears Amy begin to get up, and he grabs her arm.

  “Don't!” He whispers quietly to her. “That voice is not right. That voice lied to me before.”

  Amy pulls his hand away.

  Amy seeming to have forgotten that a voice just spoke said to Pete, “How do I know you are telling the truth? How do I know that you aren't just making up this crazy stuff about voices? How do I not know you aren't a damned?”

  “I cannot prove anything to you. You just have to trust me. Amy, you said yourself that your father heard the voice and followed it the next day. Do you believe he was making that up?”

  “No, I don't. I believe him, but isn't that why we should follow this voice and see where it leads us?”

  Pete moves right to Amy's ear and whispers, “Amy, this voice we cannot believe, it has lead me down the wrong path more than once. We need to go. We have to resist.”

  “Alright, so what do we do?”

  “I think we need to go back the way I came. We need to find the river I came down and head the opposite way from which I came. Do you know where the river would be?”

  “There is only one river.”

  Amy grabs Pete's hand and takes him to where she found him. Along the way, Pete and Amy hear voices all around them, talking to them, tempting, and pursuing. They both continue to speak to each other and try to show what and who is real. When they reach the place where Amy found Pete, they stop.

  “Pete, this is where I found you. The river runs the same way you were facing when we found you. My guess, we follow it south where it leads upstream.”

  “Yeah, that's what I already told you. Let's go before the voices get to us.”

  It is at this moment that Pete has a strong desire to fight and kill. He isn’t sure where this emotion comes from; he only knows it is a new emotion for this world. He wants revenge for all that had been happening to him, he wants someone to pay.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Amy and Pete walk along the stream, and Amy wonders who, the person she leads, is. Is he telling the truth about everything? Is he someone she could trust?

  There is one thing she knows for sure, the voices are real. Only, Amy isn’t sure Pete heard the voices correctly; what if they weren't leading them astray? She only feels she had to get away from her village and this direction seems like a good way to go. The problem is that many people did not venture this way. By continuing this way, she is venturing about as far as she has ever gone.

  The stream is more like a river, wide as the eye could see, and it moves quickly. Amy finds it tempting to push Pete in the river. She is almost being beckoned to. The voices in her head are telling her so, but she understands (at least she hopes she knows) that these voices were only messing with her. Amy considers she is crazy, but only if she had known these voices were not hers. But maybe they are her own voices?

  It’s not like I haven’t killed anyone before. What would be the difference this time?

  While she leads Pete up the stream, there is almost no grass. There is just a type of dirt, except the dirt has a grayish tint to it, almost like it is ash. Amy knew the damned have been to this area because everywhere she looks she sees that everything is dead or dying. The sun is darker in this area and it is colder, almost like the sun has shade.

  “Pete?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When you came into this world, what do you remember seeing?”

  “Not much, it was dark and I could barely see anything. I don't remember any grass and there was almost no sound except for the voices I heard.”

  “What was on the ground instead of grass?”

  “It was hard to tell, but it seemed to have been dirt. There was nothing living around except this one tree in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Hmm.…”

  “Why, what are you thinking?”

  “Well, this area here has almost no grass and instead a dirt or ashy colored ground. The sun seems to be dimmed and it seems to be colder here.”

  “And?”

  “And I believe this land is beginning to look like the land you started off in. Have you heard any animals since we found the stream?”

  “No.” Pete’s eyes open wide.

  “You see? The only sound we hear is this stream, which is really more like a river anyways. There is nothing else. I'm figuring out the damned destroy life or take it away or something. Whatever the case, I bet this same thing is happening to my village.”

  Amy leads Pete across the path she understands he took. As they are walking, the grayish ground begins to turn into patches of grass. The sparse grass turns in a fuller and fuller grass. Amy notices something else too. In the air, there is a smell she remembers from long ago. She cannot quite place it. Then she notices a different looking thing on the ground. She stops and drops on her knees to look at the object.

  “Why are we stopping?” asks Pete.

  “What is this?” wonders Amy.

  She picks up the thing that she couldn’t place. It has ten little things coming out of the center. The center being a blackish color. She puts her face to it and smells it.

  “Pete. What is this? I remember this from when I was a girl.”

  She puts the item to Pete’s nose. Pete laughs, “Really? You didn’t have flowers in the town where you came from?”

  “Oh, that’s right. That’s what it is called.” Amy giggles in delight.

  Amy spends her time down the path visiting every flower. Pete knows when she finds one because she squeals in delight, drops his hand or arm, and runs away. This is okay for the first twenty or so times, but eventually Pete tires of all the stopping, so he speaks.

  “Not that flower smelling is bad or anything, but can we get moving? I mean, we still have a way to go, I’m sure. It took me a full day to get to the border of your village. I’m sure the sun, or whatever you guys call it, is about to set.”

  Pete hears no response and panics. What if Amy leaves him? He cannot go on his journey alone. He needs someone! He needs her!

  “Amy!” Pete yells.

  “Amy!” Pete’s voice cracks.

  “You would be so hopeless without me,” laughs Amy. She is right behind Pete. She cracks up, rolling on the ground and cannot stop laughing.

  “Is the big strong man scared to be alone?” Amy continues to laugh.

  “Stop laughing! This is not funny!” yells Pete.

  “Here.” says Amy. “Take a sniff of this. It will make you feel better.

  “I don’t want to! I just wanna go!”

  Amy precedes to shove a bunch of flowers into the face of Pete. Pete gasps for air and takes in the smell of the flower. He coughs and takes a dive towards the ground. Amy laughs all the louder at this predicament. Pete cannot help but realize this moment is funny too and laughs along with her.

  After a good solid laugh of an hour or two they tire laughing.

  “Pete, I know full well this is hilarious and all, but my stomach is really hurting bad.”

  “Same, but I cannot stop laughing!”

  “It must be these flowers. They must be bewitched!” laughs Amy. “They are probably like those drugged up poppies from Oz. You think someone drugged this flowers for us?” Amy stops for a second as she briefly makes a connection with her former world once again.

  Somehow that makes sense to Pete and he wonders, while he’s laughing, but he says, “We need to go! Quickly come to me and lead me on. Now!”

  Amy comes over to Pete and they continue on their way.

  As Amy leads him, Pete has clearer thoughts. The voices left them a while ago, but what if they are using a new tactic? What if they are trying to distract them in a different way? Hmm…it seems to make sense to him.

  Amy seems to be coming to her senses too. She s
ays nothing and her pace quickens. Her tone of voice, for the little bit she speaks (in the next few hours) is much less sweet. She even becomes impatient with him for being too slow.

  She is probably going through withdraw! Pete reasons and laughs to himself.

  They proceed out of the forest and before them is an open field. There is long grass all around and flowers everywhere. There isn't a tree in front of them.

  “This looks like a field of grass. There is nothing more before us. Where do we go now?”

  “This is where I spoke with the invisible girl. I came to this field after coming out of the dark forest and heard both a boy and girl, but couldn't see them. I don't know where to go. What are we looking for?”

  Amy and Pete continue walking for a while and sit down in the field of grass.

  Sighing Amy says, “I'm not really sure. I have never been this far before. Do you remember which way these invisible kids went?”

  “Nope, they just disappeared.”

  “Well, I told you about my father hearing voices. One day he left saying he would follow the voice he heard. He said nothing more than that.”

  “Did he say anything about the type of voice or where it came from?”

  “Not that I remember, he just said he would follow it.”

  “Well, we can't go back because of those creatures the …”

  “Damned.”

  “Yeah them. And we cannot go back to the dark forest where I met the kids at the edge of it. We must go another way. Is there a north, south, east, west in this world?”

  Amy laughs, “You mean directions? Yes, of course there are directions. We have maps, but the village’s maps stop at about the forest. We have never gone this far before. This is all new for us. I don't even know much about the dark forest you speak off, but I have heard of it. Besides that, this is a mystery.”

  “Darn.”

  Which way do we go? Considers Pete. We cannot go the same way. There is no way we should go back to that dark forest.

  “I wish I could have my sight back. I am tired of not seeing.”

  “I have an idea.”

  Before Pete can ask what the idea is, he feels himself falling towards the ground, and there is a horrible pain to the head.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Pete awoke speaking. “Hey! What was that Amy? Did you notice what happened. Something hit me in the head.”

  Pete heard a rustle and noticed that someone moved towards him.

  “Pete, you okay, man? Your head must really be messed up. Who's Amy?”

  It took Pete a few minutes to realize who spoke to him. “Is this Zach?”

  “Yep. Hey, listen Pete, I have been trying to find Tom for a few hours now, and a way out of this house. The house is locked and everything is dark now. I can't see anything outside. There is this fog or mist around the house. Creepy I tell ya; this must be the point before we are killed or something. But, anyways, you need to get up. I can't find Tom anywhere and we need to get out of this house.”

  Pete connected the dots to what was happening. He got up from the couch and started toward where Zach’s voice came from.

  “There's one thing you should know. I cannot see anything.”

  “Same with me. There seems to be no light coming into this house anymore. That's why I need your help. Do you have candles, a lighter, or matches?”

  “Yeah, they're in the kitchen, but Zach, my kitchen is cursed or something. I've had strange smells come from that room. Smells like death and I have seen some floating thing covered in black.”

  “Well, we can't worry about that right now. Show me where they are.”

  Pete found Zach by walking into him and grabbed his arm. He pulled the arm to his face, but he couldn't see anything.

  “I can't even see your arm when it is right in front of me!”

  “Yeah, let's find those candles, and Pete, good news is, if a floating thing covered in black is in the kitchen at least we cannot notice it,” Zach laughed.

  “Hey, that's pretty funny.” Pete stated dryly. “Here take my hand.”

  “Yes sir! I have been looking forward to the day we could hold hands.” Zach said in a joking manner.

  Pete laughed at that, but stated, “Shut up boy. In every movie the people always get separated and die one by one.”

  “True.”

  Pete led Zach through the pitch-black living room, to the kitchen that should be down the hallway on the left. After they bumped into everything along the way, they reached the hallway. Pete put his hand along the left side of the wall, and keeping hold of Zach in his right, he began to move along the wall.

  “Okay, we are getting close to the kitchen, it will be up here on our left.”

  He continued along the wall until he reached an opening.

  “Here's the kitchen. The candles and matches will be on the far side of the kitchen, to the left of the fridge, in the middle drawer. I will move along the wall with my right hand, so let's switch hands.”

  “This must be getting serious. I get to hold both your hands in one night,” Zach continued bantering.

  By this point Pete had enough and switched hands, found the right side of the wall, and moved along it. He then proceeded to the right corner of the kitchen.

  “Now we just have to go down to the left, along this wall, past the fridge, and we will be set.”

  He moved his right hand along the cupboards and reached the end of the corner to the left.

  “Alright Zach, I will let go of your hand so I can look through the drawer.”

  “Fine by me. I'll just put my hand on your shoulder, so you know I'm still here.”

  “Now you’re thinking.”

  Pete went through the clutter of the drawer to search for the candle and matches. He shuffled through a bunch of papers and cards to get to the candles in the back. He pulled them out and put them on top of the table. After a few more moments he pulled out the matches too. He lit one candle, and the corner of the kitchen glowed.

  “There you go Pete! Let me put my arms around your waist and give you a thank you kiss on the cheek,” said Zach while suppressing a laugh.

  Pete had enough; after Zach put his hands on his waist, he grabbed the candle and turned around to give him a solid kick to the stomach.

  Zach began to laugh as Pete turned around. At first Pete could see anything in front of him.

  “Hey Zach, where did you go?”

  “I'm right here, boy. Right in front of you.” Zach laughed, but for the first time Pete was not sure the laugh came from Zach.

  Pete realized, to his horror, there was a blackness in front of him. Pete gasped and backed up into the cabinet, and bumped into it with his back. He looks down at where the feet of the blackness should be, but nothing was there.

  The black floating figure laughed in a horrible voice. Pete wanted to run out the kitchen to the left, but he cannot move. The figure moved closer to Pete and continued to laugh.

  “I have you Pete. I have you. There's no point in trying anymore. You cannot get away. It's time to give up. It's time to pay back what I gave you. It's time to give me what is mine.” The black figure went for Pete and gave a tug deep inside his chest.

  Pete felt faint and collapsed to the ground.

  As Pete passed out he hears: “Give it to me! Give it to me! It will soon be mine! You cannot fight for him forever! He is not yours!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Pete wakes up in a panic. His head didn’t hurt, but his chest area does and he gasps for air. Also, he can see, and Amy is now right in his face. She looks worried sick.

  “Hey Pete! What’s wrong?”

  Amy pushes away Pete’s hands from his chest and feels his heartbeat. She listens for a few moments and has a perplexed look on her face.

  Pete gasps for air, and pushing Amy’s hand away, he rolls over to his side. Pete wants to speak, but he cannot. He feels his heart, wondering if he is having a heart attack.

  To Pete’s dismay
, his heart seems to function fine.

  Amy pulls Pete back over on his back and asks, “Pete, your heart is beating fine. Where does it hurt?”

  Pete only motions towards his heart. He tries to speak once again, but he cannot.

  At this point Pete turns blue in the face.

  “What the heck Pete! Don’t you go dying on me. Once a wimp, always a wimp, but I need your help. I need to find my father, and you need to help!”

  Amy pounds on Pete’s chest with a small hope that might fix the issue.

  At this point, Pete stops breathing, but Amy only hits all the harder. She also yells out loud for help, to no one in particular.

  After a few more moments, Amy gives up, backs off of the lifeless body, and falls to her left side, landing on the soft grass. She closes her eyes and tries to think of nothing.

  Suddenly, there is a rustle, and Amy hears a couple voices in the distance.

  “Did they both die?” says a voice that sounds like a younger boy.

  “Oh no! Are we too late?” says a voice that sounds like a younger girl.

  “Maybe so.”

  Amy continues to have her head on the ground, with her eyes close. She hears the two move close to Pete.

  “Looks like we might be too late with this one.” The boy sighs and drops to the ground.

  “Is there anything we can do?” asks the girl.

  “Come on. You know this look. He is gone for good. Let’s check the other one.”

  Amy still tries not to move, but at this point she cannot stop shaking.

  “Oh, she is alive for sure!” the girls voice quickens and rises in pitch.

  “Are you okay Amy?” asks the boy.

  Even now, Amy cannot move. She tries to open her eyes, but they do not.

  “I think she is in shock.” says the boy. “It’s okay Amy; you will be fine. Your friend, unfortunately, is dead. Dead as a doornail, gone from this world. Kaput! Fini…”

  The girl cuts him off, “You can stop right there; she doesn’t need to hear that!”

  “Amy, I want you to try to relax, okay? Listen to my voice. I need you to sleep, and you will feel better when you wake up. Don’t worry Amy, we will be here to watch you. To protect you, to keep you safe. Sleep, my child. Sleep…”