Dark Incarnate - Chapter14 Book1

Dark Incarnate

By Mr. Black

Chapter 14

Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold

The sound of the cellar door being bashed in brought Kelly back.  Sunlight flooded in from the opened door.  Her mind was delirious and muscles weak, but worst of all her eyes wouldn’t adjust. 

A fuzzy figure descended the stair slow and methodical.  The strain of holding her head up was too much and she dropped back to the springy mattress.  The dried semen across her stomach, breasts, and face cracked and pulled at her movement.  There was more she needed to see and understand, but her consciousness was just as fuzzy and unable to focus as her eyes.  Sounds… something other than the person was around her.  The air itself?  She should be able to tell, but it didn’t make any sense.  Her wires crossed and circuts blown, everything was static.  Just static.  Her feet were cold, she tried to wiggle her toes but it was impossible to tell if it worked. 

The light.  She tried to focus on the ceiling above and dancing shadows.  The light from the doorway, it was sunlight, daytime, but what day? 

Josh lit a candle and began to carry it around the room looking after something other than her.  Hundreds of flies swarmed his head like swamp insects landing without care and moving with an agitated speed across his greasy skin.  He slapped and chased them spilling hot wax on himself and the dirt floor.  The girl was still alive, and he was confused at the flies.  He understood simple things.  Things that he knew to be universal constants, but so many events had defied his concrete grasp in the past days.  The flies had come from somewhere it was simple to him as two plus two, but they didn’t.  He spent a good amount time peering into the empty room with lifeless still eyes until his brain just gave up.  He chuckled; it must be a traveling troop of flies like the gnats that swarmed in the summer heat.  They did seem different, more energetic and strong.  They were on his face, in his hair, and infiltrating his clothing searching and feeling him over.  The creepy grin on his ugly face faded and his concern grew; even he knew they were imaging him like a blind person feeling his face, learning him. 

Kelly drifted inward unable to cope with the world around her.  She passed beyond the physical again and saw vividly.  Time stopped and slowed as she felt Josh move about the room.  Many flies burned their wings and crashed to the floor from the candle’s flame.  Like a passing shadow the flies dissipated from Josh and went elsewhere.  He could still hear them, but for the first time in his life Josh felt true unease.  There was intelligence in the creatures greater than his own. 

Kelly’s weak eyes lulled open and closed, but her mind bloomed.  The knowing was back.  Time was a construct of the conscious mind not a constraint.  Billions of lines exploded in her mind, they were timelines of countless lives ran anywhere but linear.  Each mind constructs its own time dimension so therefore each was a unique expression of the person..  The human variable was unimaginable.  Kelly’s incredible ability for abstract imagination and ability to see with her minds eye was breathtaking as she searched to find her own timeline.  She would never be able to explain what she saw.  A three dimensional sphere would be equally impossible to translate to a two dimensional piece of paper.  The paper would see a mere dot where the sphere touched it, and how would you unravel a sphere so the paper could understand it? 

Darkness couldn’t traverse time.  It had no concept of time because it didn’t exist.  It lacked the spatial existence and bodily consciousness to create it.  It was eternal; all points of time whether past or future were real to It, not just the present.  Fire blazed through her neurological pathways.  She found herself.  It was Wednesday, just past ten in the morning.  But was that the present, the real right now, or was it just a point in time?  More importantly, could she go back?

Something shook her and like a leaf falling from a tree and Kelly drifted back.  Josh held the ropes and steadied himself.  The flies were maddening but impossible to stop.  They shifted and engulfed her body, but that didn’t bother him.  He hoisted Kelly’s higher bringing her into a nice position so he could stand this time.  Butch was a genius.

Wet slapping echoed as Josh patted her spread box.  The flies seemed most interested in Kelly now.  She was sloppy wet from leftover semen and discharge.  He sank a finger into the warm sleeve.  Her body was still incredible.  He would die before he gave her up.

Kelly rolled her head to the side and moaned through a dry throat.  Josh sent two fingers in up to the big knuckle and started to kick in her delightful sloshing hole.  Pulling out spread fingers, he admired the slowly closing gape.  Her stretched and abused body wrinkled trying to close again.  He tried to ignore them, but the flies seemed interested in the same slop that he was now.  His fingers went back in kicking and trying to stretch her open again fascinated by the little creatures’ ferocity. 

Kelly’s eyes opened and saw Josh between her legs.  He was still fuzzy but doing something to her.  She tried so hard to focus and blinked weakly begging, “Please…”  Her croaking voice was nothing but a stray noise as he continued to play between her legs.  He was pulling her labia wide waiting for flies to dive in before releasing giggling as her body closed on them like a carnivorous plant.   Her eyes blinked more and more trying to come back to the physical.  She knew she had to.  The light in the doorway, this was the real now and there was no going back.  Kelly closed her eyes again but focused on the flies. 

Suddenly all the flies kicked up at once and Josh felt unease again.  Something wasn’t right.  They collectively landed and went silent as Josh took a step back.  There were rules, rules that couldn’t be broken.  The silence of the room screamed in his ears and his face flushed red.  Some dark intent was settling on him and he didn’t understand it.  He could feel it like an approaching storm, a gathering dread. 

The flies burst into the air again and Josh stumbled back and fell on his naked butt still trying to back away.  It was un-natural.  A flock of birds spooked in a field maybe, but not flies!  He was vaguely aware of right and wrong.  He was real and when someone wronged him he got revenge, but he hadn’t done anything wrong.  Why was this happening?  Flies began to plunge at him one by one.  More followed as he backed away and hit the far dirt wall.  Soon huge swaths of insects hurled at his face blinding him and buzzing in his ears and hair.  His face cringed in a nightmarish fear, it couldn’t be happening to him.  How? Why?

The flies scattered in a thousand different directions from him.  Only his heaving breath remained in the silence as the last of them buzzed escaping his clothes.  His heart felt ready to burst when he looked back at Kelly who hung solemnly looking at him.  Her eyes burned at him.  She wasn’t real, she was his, he found her, she couldn’t be angry at him. 

He jerked his sweating and crazy eyed face to the far corner, the darkest corner of the cellar where a low rumble got his attention.  Two burning spheres of brown light flared.  Eyes.  His mind revolted, these things couldn’t be.  They swirled like restless fish before finally locking on him and approaching slowly. 

“You’re not REAL!”  He screamed but the eyes didn’t waver.  Another low guttural growl shook the ground as the blazing eyes held him frozen.  A shadow in the shadows emerged slowly giving hints to the shaggy mane of the wolf like incarnate.  It slowly approached him with heavy footfalls and claws that clattered like they were on tile. 

Josh was dumbstruck unable to even move his chest.  He wasn’t heaving anymore only short tiny wispy breaths as the monster stopped nose to nose with him.  His face wrenched in terrible horror when his breath was cut short by a lightning bite that ripped his esophagus out.  Kelly watched him slump over on the floor and choke to death on his own blood.  The wolf calmly tuned and plodded over to Kelly.  It paused looking down at her.  The eyes flickered with brown fire radiating pure compassion.  The instant she recognized it, the wolf burst into a million golden stars filtering through the air like dust in the afternoon sun.

Kelly had a vague sense of drunken understanding. 

Something inside her churned and Kelly clapped both hands over her stomach.  It hurt, something wasn’t right.  A liquid smooth pop as It erupted from her uterus.  All the blood drained from her face as the knowing settled on what it was.  It was the nightmare of all nightmares, the thing that makes men fear darkness yet wonder into it.  It swam like a fish kicking madly trying to fight gravity and escape the girl’s body.

If it had any power left it would have just killed Kelly, but the vulnerable infantile state left it scared and very aware of time.  Time is undeniably linked to weakness and frailty.  It emerged carefully perching on the platform of her box.  Kelly caught her breath and grabbed at it.  She had to kill it now, it was weak and she could smash it in her hands, pay it back for all the pain.  But it was ready and slipped past her sluggish hands sliding down her stomach and off her side leaving a slimy trail under her left breast.

Kelly scrambled after it with more strength than she’d had in a long time, but the thing was gone and she was still tied to the ceiling. 

The smell of fresh blood kept her awake and after the last gurgling escaped Josh’s body she tried to reach the knots at her ankles.  She was weak, dehydrated, and starving but there was no reason to hold a reserve anymore.  The old man was dead or near dying, somehow she just knew.  She had no clue about Billy. 

The thought of him made her stomach turn.  She wasn’t quite sure what to feel.  Her body wrenched off the soiled mattress and dove for her ankles but it was no use and she slumped back.  He had seen too much and the idea of facing him now might push her over the edge.  But she felt she could trust him.  He would have never made it inside her apartment if she couldn’t, but she had to put herself aside because he may be her only hope.  Kelly bent all of her thought on him trying to call out as she slipped under the black velvet of sleep again.  The flies returned. 

Billy’s fingers were bloody and his face covered in shattered concrete that stuck to the wet streams of tears.  He’d made progress through the night by the moonlight.  A wild sense of caveman fury pushed him on.  The makeshift ladder was halfway, and he could nearly reach the window if he jumped.  The port was on the opposite side of the leaning structure and the water and mud would break any fall if he missed.  His first attempt he did miss and he bounced his face off the ledge but didn’t feel any pain.  A second and third try bruised his chest and nearly broke a rib, but he caught a hold on the fourth try and rolled out painfully onto the springy grass.  It was noon and the cicadas called urging the day's heat to come.  It was a beautiful day, but he knew where Kelly was in his Brother’s lair.  He would have went for the shotgun, consequences be damned, if he hadn’t lost it already.   He couldn’t allow himself to think about what was happening or had happened to her.  What Kelly had undoubted endured.  Josh deserved to die and he had to be sure this time.  He wouldn’t lose again, couldn’t lose for her sake.  He found a curved sickle in the barn; it was rusted but still sharp and ran for the house. 

Naturally sneaky, he slunk inside the house without a sound and was surprised not to hear his father at the television.  The cellar door was open.  He would get Kelly out and burn the house down.  The old twisted heart of the house had begged for it for years.

No sounds or evidence of life scared him.  Too quite was bad.  The cellar was a place of death and he couldn’t still his shaking hands and trembling body.  He smelled what he knew was a death stench raising from the pit.  His eyes flared and looked at the sickle and he wished he had grabbed a ball pin hammer instead; he didn’t want to kill Josh, not yet.  He wanted him to suffer.  He wanted to pour all the hate and fear Josh had inflicted upon him, his dog, and now Kelly right into his cringing face and listen to him beg for forgiveness. 

He stepped over the threshold of the door like the first step was an icy pond that might not hold his weight.  Adrenaline and hate powered his body like a coiled spring ready to unleash at the first sign.  The darkness was pure and solid and his eyes wouldn’t adjust at first, but he saw a slumped body at the bottom.  It wasn’t Kelly.  Then he heard the flies and the room’s secretes slowly filtered into his adjusting eyes.  

Josh was dead.  It wasn’t fair he deserved to suffer.  Billy tried to miss the sticky blood but left tracks as he realized Kelly’s situation.  Words failed him, feelings, and curses were no good either.  He learned the limits of human expression.  He flashed the sickle across the rope and her dead weight dropped bouncing on the old mattress.  Billy’s anger knew no bounds, but changed to concern and compassion once she was in his arms again.  Josh was gone and his father didn’t matter.  Billy just ran, ran from the old house and black cavity of the cellar.  He ran from the decayed tooth that was the house, ran from the farm and twisted barn and into the forest again. 

Kelly was lighter and unresponsive, he was aware that she had been raped.  The evidence dripped and covered her nude body like Christmas tinsel.  She reacted to the sun, though it was nothing more than a blank stir in his arms he knew she would come to soon.  His heart cried in inexpressible love and joy that she would wake to the warm sun and safety far away from that wretched cellar. 

He ran through the wood, cutting away from the old train station.  He planned to pick the tracks back up but He’d never go back to that place again.  His legs didn’t tire and fatigue never slowed him.  The idea and hope of her waking in her own bed like the whole experience was a bad dream fueled him.  Never again would he leave her side.  It was over, all of it.  He would burn the last of the experiments in the studio and tear down the makeshift lab.  It didn’t matter if she wasn’t able to ever paint or draw, he would be there for her.  He would drop out of school and provide even if she hated him for it, even if she blamed him for all of it, he would never stop trying.  He had to right the wrongs she never deserved to experience. 

Billy rushed over the tiny creek at Kelly’s back yard and laid her on the porch.  The back door was locked and he was amazed to find the front open.  She still wasn’t fully awake or aware until he got her into a tub of warm water and gently held a cup of water to her lips.  Billy had never been so scared in his life. 

Kelly recovered surprisingly fast, but didn’t go to school at all that week.  Billy went back to his house and gathered a few things upon Kelly’s insistence.  He also went to school to explain her absence.  Candace got the same story he told Mrs. Francis; Kelly was having a bout of depression and was seeing a councilor.  He knew if Candace ever found out the real truth she would blame him.  Candace vowed to come over for the next weekend.  Kelly’s Aunt ran to the store for her and took Billy to the post office where he picked up a duffle bag that had been left for Officer Higgins.  Higgins left the school after the mess at the Train Station was dealt with.  Luckily West Virginia had no shortage of dump sites for a van and body.  Tom Chambers own cover held quite nicely.  His normal out of town business was supposed to keep him until the next weekend.  When he didn’t come back it would appear he split like many such millionaires do during a mid-life crisis.  Billy destroyed the creatures in the lab and stored the tanks under the porch.  Kelly, who had always been distant, found her only solace in solitude.  Her other artwork stayed at the Chestnut Ridge exhibit but she had her Aunt bring more and more supplies.  Billy who continued with school that week, would leave and come back to find her starring blankly at huge empty canvases for hours.  Candace called everyday but couldn’t get much out of Kelly and spent most of her time grilling Billy for answers, but he didn’t know what to say. 

Friday night Candace got permission from her Mother to spend the night at Kelly’s.  The week had been dreadfully hot without a drop of rain except for the sudden downpour that caused areawide flash floods.  But the sun was back and baked the blacktop where Candace crossed the parking lot Kelly’s apartment.  Something big had happened.  Jealousy burned her for a while as she thought Billy might have something to do with it, but she was really worried at this point.  It was clear that Billy had basically moved in with Kelly, but the details were strangely hidden.  The worst thing that bothered her was, Candace felt abandoned.  The stir in her girly parts was only the beginning.  She knew something unnatural was inside her and she was helpless to do anything about it.  Her dad wasn’t due back until tomorrow, but she had to do something about it before he got back.  If he took her she didn’t know exactly what would happen but after the grubs, she could guess.  Kelly HAD to help her. 

Billy got off the bus a little behind her.  Candace was ignoring him as usual, but had to wait on him to catch up and unlock the door.  She rushed inside and tossed her bag to the side.  Billy had pillows and covers on the couch so at least he wasn’t sleeping with Kelly.

“Kelly!?!”  Candace yelled

“You better just go on up, she’s probably in the studio.”  Billy was scared of Candace, he always had been but it would be up to Kelly what the ‘official’ story would be.

“If I find out you had anything to do with this Billy, I swear to god I’ll ruin you at school until you kill yourself.” Her acid tongue had lost none of its potency. 

Billy went into the kitchen to make Kelly some lunch even though it was past three in the afternoon.  He knew she’d skipped lunch.  The End of Grade tests were coming up and he honestly hoped Candace would have some luck.  Kelly couldn’t just stay in her room forever.  She may not need art class to pass, but she had other classes too.  And the school wouldn’t take excuses forever.  Her Aunt, Sandra, had corroborated what she needed to and even thought it was cute that Billy was living with her, but that couldn’t last forever if the school sent a real counselor over. 

Candace gently knocked on the studio door and slowly turned the knob.  An amazed sense of Kelly’s courage flashed when she thought of the first time Kelly came to her house and did the same.  “Kelly?”  She softly called and pushed the door open. 

Kelly was sitting on a bar stool starring at a huge empty canvas that was almost as big as the picture window downstairs.  She slowly looked over, awakened from a trance and smiled to see her friend.  She still didn’t say anything.  Candace didn’t understand, if she was happy to see her why didn’t she come to school? 

“Hey, how’ve you been?”  Candace asked and walked over to stand beside her and look at the empty canvas.  “What’cha workin on?” 

The questions were juvenile and annoyed Kelly a bit but how could she expect them to understand.  The universe had been opened to her.  She couldn’t explain it to Candace anymore than she could paint it on this canvas.  Darkness had inadvertently showed her the light as well.  The world became a waking dream for her.  Kelly felt she could move in and out of reality into an invisible undercurrent.  The intricate inner workings of the world, of love and life were too marvelous and beautiful to express.  Darkness was out there, the incarnate of pure hatred and malice.  She had to understand how to alter the inner gears and working of this physical reality to stop it.  If she could pass beyond its grasp into the ethereal and become invincible to it, it would fail. 

Kelly took a deep breath knowing some sort of response was required of her, “How to use the keys to the universe…”

Candace raised a surprised eyebrow, “Well that’s not what I expected.  Why don’t we just jump to a hard one.  What’s the meaning of life?” 

Her smile had lost some of its wild innocence and brilliance but Kelly chuckled, “That’s easy.” 

“Go on then, let’s hear it.” 

“To go, to explore, to experience, to savor, to enjoy… to love.” 

“You don’t seem to be doing much of that in here.”

Kelly gave a quick look of pity and turned back to her canvas, “I need a bigger one, this one’s too small.” 

“Well Miss Universe, I don’t know what to tell you.  The real world over here needs you so why don’t you GO outside for a walk?”

She snapped her head back so fast it startled Candace, “It’s out there, and it’s not going for a walk… I have to figure this out.  You must understand it’s going to come for us all soon.”

Candace took a frightened step back.  “I…I need you…” She had never felt so small before in her life. 

Kelly jumped up; she was angry and frustrated though she knew she shouldn’t be.  Candace started to back up and Kelly followed her until she backed into the wall.  Candace was scared to death when Kelly pressed her arm and elbow into her stomach pinning her to the wall.  Her other hand reached under her skirt and brushed her panties aside. 

The tiny creature inside her womb stirred feeling Kelly’s raw power, while it was powerless to resist.  Like a magnet Kelly pulled it out without even touching the girl.  She stepped back holding the small wriggling worm in her palm.  “This is from beyond the fabric of reality and it’s nothing but a speck of dust.”  She smashed it in her hand letting the blood drip onto the carpet before throwing the carcass against the wall.  Candace held her breath in awe. 

“You could take it, examine it with the strongest microscope in the world and run a thousand tests and still miss the picture.  These floors and walls that make up this room are nothing but atoms.  The nucleuses of those atoms are like pennies on the floor of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.  Your reality, Candace only exists up here,” Kelly tapped her head.  “There’s something out there, something very evil, the spirit of evil to be exact that transcends all this.” Her eyes were wild and she waved her hands motioning to the whole room and world that Candace knew.

“I-I don’t… I mean what are you… we suppose to..” 

“I’m gonna kill the motha-fucker!”  Kelly went back to her stool and looked at the canvas again.  “Now, if you would help me find a bigger canvas.”

This Is a Work of Fiction

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.