Hunted by Darkness

The Oldest Power

Sarah

Trembling, she stood up, not even sure if her legs would hold her up. The old woman watched her, lending her a hand for support. She was bent and knotted in strange ways, yet her grip was as firm as a young man’s. Dressed in a long colourful coat and a blue headwrap expertly tied around her head. Big hoop earrings framed her face. If her hands betrayed her age, her face didn’t give anything away; her skin was dark and smooth like black onyx.

    ‘I think I’m ok,’ her voice was still weak. ‘What was that?’

    ‘Hmmm…’ the woman looked in the direction where the thing had been, ‘good question…’

    She looked deep into the darkness for a moment, then turned a smiling expression towards her.

    ‘Not to worry, dear, it’s gone now.’

    Sarah watched her, bewildered, as she walked away from her. The old lady was going to leave her in the middle of nowhere, and with no explanation as to what had happened.

    Whatever that thing was, the woman had seen it, seen her, and pulled her out of it, then destroyed that thing. She must have some idea of what it was. Yet she walked away with a firm but slow pace. Just before she called after her, the woman turned and made a beckoning gesture. With a sigh of relief, Sarah joined her, tears burning her eyes

    They walked for a bit. The footpath ran along a grey brick road and plunged into the darkness of the curve. A chill in the air, or maybe inside her, she crossed her arms over her chest. There was a noisy sort of silence, a soundtrack of invisible cars driving past populated by the fleeting image of a ghost, a noise punctuated by their rhythmic steps.

    It amazed Sarah how small the woman was, shorter than she was, which was saying something. She walked in a sort of wobbly way because one of her legs was stiff, barely bending at the knee.

    ‘Do you need any help?’

    ‘Help with what, dear?’ she asked.

    Embarrassed, Sarah didn’t answer. She was obviously used to do things on her own. Hoping she hadn’t offended her, she kept walking.

    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said as if knowing what she was thinking, ‘it happened a long time ago. I am used to it, it     doesn’t bother me anymore. Well, except on really cold, dry days. Wet days too,’ she laughed with a sort of cackle.

    Sarah smiled and was about to reply when they came to a turn and faced a fenced pedestrian promenade. As they approached the barrier, the air became more humid and carried a smell of garbage. A river? There was no river in Longbridge, ironically.

    ‘Where are we?’ she turned on her heels to face the woman.

    ‘Southwater, pet, where did you think you were?’

    She didn’t know what to say. Southwater? That was maybe ten kilometres from her house, more from the fast-food restaurant where she had been… well, what? Attacked? Had that even happen? As the minutes ticked by, the reality of it all seemed to dilute into an improbable thing. Soon, she’d think it was all a dream.

    ‘This is ridiculous!’ her frustration was overwhelming. ‘You need to tell me what’s happening?’

    Demanding any information from this stranger felt absurd, but there was nobody else to ask.

    ‘Come, come,’ she waved her hand at her.

    She followed her once more, this time to a bench facing the water. The woman sat with a sigh of relief and opened her coat to reveal a large, scruffy bag hidden under it. She rummaged inside and pulled a bottle of water and a pack of biscuit, handing both to Sarah. 

    ‘Look at the river.’

    Sarah followed her gaze. The water ran dark and unsteady, the streetlights floating on its surface like globes. It hit the pillars of an old bridge with little force, almost still at its base, until it found a way around it to continue on its way.

    ‘It’s full of darkness, yet in the morning, it will be… well, brown or green, you know? But not dark, not this vein of black blood. The river is old; it’s been running through this self-made bed for thousands of years, always running away from itself. It’s powerful and ravaging at times, and soft and patient at others, but always makes its way to the sea,’ she took a biscuit and bit into it, crumbles tumbling down her chest and lap. ‘There are many other powers in the Universe like these rivers, some much older and more powerful than any Earthbound force. One of these powers, that’s what you saw tonight.’ She took another bite. ‘The Oldest power, indeed.’ She muttered more to herself than to Sarah.

    ‘What’s the Oldest power?’

    The woman faced her now, eyebrows raised in pronounced arches, as if surprised she didn’t know.

    ‘What was first, what reduced mass to almost nothing, trying to push it and push it, trying to absorb it. Fortunately, it     didn’t. The mass burst into millions and millions of stars, and the power was defeated once more. For a while, anyway,’ she cackled again.

    ‘Are you talking about the Big Bang?’

    ‘Is that what they call it? Hmmm…’ she turned her gaze back to the water.

    ‘What was there before that, then?’ Sarah asked, preferring not to argue on how nonsensical all this sounded. She had no idea what was going on.

    ‘Darkness, dear, darkness. The harshest, most unforgiving darkness to be, one that no eye would ever get accustomed to.’

    ‘And the explosion defeated it?’ She asked in disbelief.

    ‘No, not the explosion,’ she smiled. ‘The light! And not defeated, kept at bay. But darkness is like this river; it will eventually find its way, whether by force or patience, or even by chance.’    

    What the woman was saying was outlandish, yet something inside her nodded in agreement. There was no logic in her story. This was the sort of thing to be expected from high fantasy books or movies. Surely she was living in some sort of delusion. It was the authority in her voice which made her subconsciously believe it, that’s what it was. It must be.

    ‘But all of that… it’s just physics!’ she was trying to reason with herself more than with the old woman. ‘You speak of it as if it had a life, a will of its own!’

    ‘Is it just physics? It seemed to me that I pulled you out of something that was very willfully coming for you, dear.’

    She had no answer for that. There was no way to deny it. Whatever that thing was, it had been coming for her, at least as far as she could see, which wasn’t very far. None of this explained how she ended up more than ten kilometres from where she was.

    ‘That’s enough questions for now,’ the woman said before she even opened her mouth. ‘You must be tired, and your parents are probably worried.’

    She scuttled to the edge of the bench and let herself slide off it until she was standing up once more.

    ‘I wouldn’t mind your arm, though. It’s humid here.’

    We walked to the end of the walkway, and turned back into a dark street, coming out to a broader road, near a taxi stop.

    ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

    ‘Sarah.’

    ‘Really?’

    The woman stared at her, pierced her eyes with her gaze, as if inspecting her. Without another word, she searched in her handbag and pulled out a necklace. It was a rough piece of white quartz hanging from a length of braided string.

    ‘It will protect you,’ she said in her uneven voice, ‘from fear, from darkness.’

    She pushed the small talisman into her hand turned on her heels.

    ‘Wait!’ I called after her as she started walking away. ‘I don’t even know who you are!’

    The woman half-turned to me and smiled.

    ‘I’m Essie,’ she said, and then left me.

    ‘Thank you, Essie!’ I called after her again, but this time, she didn’t look back.

Every window was dark when she got home. She had checked her phone before she took a taxi home, but there were no missed calls. She had been gone almost the whole day and away from her friends. Even thinking about them put a fist of fear in her throat. Where they even ok? What had happened to Alex and Mary? She had tried calling them, but there was no answer. It was now past eleven. She had half expected her mother to be in hysterics, but it didn’t seem she had lost sleep over it. It had occurred to her to call home, but she realized she didn’t even have the number. At least she still had her phone and card with her, though the rest of her shopping had stayed in the VW.

    The taxi drove away as she rang the doorbell. It hadn’t occurred to her mother to give her a set. It was obvious she hadn’t expected her to get home so late. Still, nobody answered. She tried again, but still nothing. Looking up and down the street, there was nobody out that could help her, although she wasn’t sure what sort of help she could expect. Passing strangers would happen to have a key to her door.

    The street dove into darkness at both ends, the streetlights in periodical orange punctuations. The emptiness gave her chills. After the evening she had had, the last thing she wanted was to be alone outside. She tried the door handle, just because there was nothing else she could do. She was surprised to find the door open. It swung in without a creek and closed with the soft sound of air being vacuumed in.

    Every light was off. It was cold, and she felt vulnerable downstairs. A shiver went through her again; a soft shaking started on her hands. She was hungry but couldn’t bear the idea of sitting in the kitchen alone. She ran upstairs and rushed into her room, closing the door behind her, pushing her desk against her door as tears welled into her eyes. Freezing, she kicked her shoes off and buried herself under the covers, still fully dressed, only reaching out a hand to switch on the light on the bedside table. Now that she was alone, she found it impossible not to relive the moments running away from that thing, that darkness. She hadn’t felt that fear while she was with Essie, but that made sense; she had seen her reduce that thing to smoke and ashes. Alone, in her house, what could she do against that thing? She closed her hand around the crystal hanging from her neck.

    The older woman’s warmth had followed her in the car, all the way home, but coming back to this existence of unknown people and places had shocked her back into a state of fright. It chased her the whole night. Even when she finally succumbed to sleep, fear still plagued her dreams. It took a more definite shape, in her subconscious. Not like the swallowing, black mass of shadow that had chased her and, possibly, transported her, that evening. In her dreams, it was Alex, Mary, even her parents, the doctors at the hospital and the nurses, who chased her, blank faces, lifeless eyes, down corridors and streets. For hours, all she seemed to do was run, but there was nowhere to go. They were always there, and she didn’t remember any safe places. Where could she possibly go?

    She ran and ran until, finally, she saw a light. The red fire of dawn burst in a lost horizon. That’s where she would run to, the sun, the source of all light.

**********

Gabriel

Although he was relieved none of the hospitals had heard of her, his heart was still pounding in his chest. He had no possible explanation for what had happened to her. There was no way to tell how long he had been unconscious, but it was still strange that he hadn’t been able to find her. He had driven around for quite a while, farther and farther around. How far could she get on foot?

    He turned, the bed cracking under his weight. He hadn’t been able to sleep. Another night of eyes wide open and hyperactive brain. He had so many questions and no idea where to find answers. Yet there must be an explanation for what had happened to them.

    His phone vibrated on the bedside table. The backlight blinded him. A notification from social media blinked on the top of his screen. Opening the application, he ignored the new content and tapped on the photo tab. Scrolling past a few group pictures, he found that one of Sarah, standing in front of the theatre when they had gone to see a play in London. He loved that picture of her. Her hair curled down her neck, a smile like a child in a toy shop. He missed her. This lurking was killing him. It was pointless. Even as she was in the hospital, he had watched from afar, too scared to even admit to himself that he hoped she would come down and talk to him one day. He wasn’t even expecting her to remember him.

    At the same time, he was terrified she would not be her. Could she be the same Sarah if she didn’t remember being Sarah? This fear was one of the main reasons he hadn’t approached her yet. All he had to do, after all, was knock at her door. Her mother didn’t like him, but she wouldn’t stop him, he thought. Although they hadn’t spoken since the accident. Before, she only disliked him because he was older. Twenty-six seemed to be an old man to Sarah’s eighteen. Now, with what had happened, surely she hated him. But with good reason this time, although probably not as much as he hated himself.

    He tumbled out of bed and buried his hands in his hair, feeling ready to pull it out. He wanted to scream out in frustration. Instead, he took a shower. He stared at his image in the mirror, dark circles under his eyes made him look like a creep. It was the frustration and the missing her and everything else that took his sleep away. He was tired of lurking, stalking like a criminal. It was time to take action.