Dark Silence

30 days (3)

Madeleine went deep back into her tablet and in a minute turned it to Darnell. On it, in big capital letters, was written the phrase: “I’m also not delighted with you!”

“Your words are quite rude,” Darnell commented on, squinting angrily. “Aren’t you aware that you must treat grown-ups with respect?”

The next phrase the girl wrote was “There is nothing to respect you for yet.”

“ Oh f… this is sick!” The man waved his hands. “Some girl will give me a lecture!”

He tipped back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The clock was ticking on the wall counting the time given to him for fulfilling the task. Darnell waited for precisely a minute to calm himself down and sighed again looking at the folder of the case. There was no reason to read it today to the end, especially taking into account an awful migraine crushing his temples.

“It’s late now. I’ll finish analyzing it tomorrow,” commented the man standing up. Madeleine stood up too. “Come on, I’ll take you to my place if Ewing thinks that this will be the best variant.”

He went to the high hanger, took a small bag, and put on his favorite knee-length coat. It hid his gaunt figure with a quiet rustle. Madeleine followed him as he left the room, and only then Darnell noticed that apart from a bag for the tablet she also had a small red trunk on wheels with her.

“Need help?” he nodded at the trunk while locking the door. Madeleine shook her head and stared grimly at the floor. “Fine then, let’s go, I need to close the office too.”

Going down the passages, Darnell was turning off the lights, checking if everything was fine before leaving. Even though he was coming the last to work, he was leaving also after everyone. At first, Ewing tried to fight with this staggering schedule of his, but finally simply gave him a copy of all keys from the floor and charged with closing everything before leaving. After he coped with this routine task, he took Madeleine to the parking area.

The ground was flooded with yellow lights of lanterns. Autumn leaves were lonely flying past it as if in a hurry for an important meeting. All employees have already gone home, and only Darnell’s favorite Volvo 760 was showing darkly in the furthest corner. It responded to its owner with a constrained shriek of an alarm.

“It’s going to die soon,” grumbled Darnell. “Go to the back seat,” he referred to Madeleine opening the back door. “Wait a second.”

Darnell got inside and quickly grabbed all the beer and energy drink cans that he was constantly throwing there out of the car. They jumped on the pavement with a joyful clank. Darnell pushed them away and turned to Madeleine.

“Give me your trunk.”

After packing it, he opened the door wide for the girl. Madeleine made a face of disgust and finally took a seat. Darnell walked around his car and flopped down the driver seat. He sighed with relief and started it. The engine responded to him with the well-known deep hum that made the man smile. Despite the fact that Cyril was always calling his car only “the rattletrap”, it seemed to him that it had its own soul and character. Darnell directed his Volvo home. He automatically turned on the radio recorder, and it produced hoarse sounds of heavy-metal music. Darnell turned the radio up and, having the eyes glued to the half-empty road, found a pack of cigarettes in a glove compartment. When he put one in the mouth, he heard the serviceable click of a lighter.

“Just in time, friend, as always,” thought the man lighting up the cigarette and returning the device back into its slot. Darnell drew in on it with relief remembering that he hadn’t smoked for the whole hour. That moment two loud claps sounded from the back seat, and Darnell got scared for a second nearly dropping the cigarette on his pants. He relaxed too much, completely forgetting about Madeleine. He pulled the driving mirror to see his passenger.

“What?” he spat irritatedly. The girl started to deliberately slowly blowing off the smoke with her hand, and after that pointed at the man. He rolled his eyes up. “Great. So now I can’t even smoke in my own car?” he opened the window and threw away the half-smoked cigarette.

The heavy silence hung above Darnell like a hammer ready to knock on the nail. He cast the glance into the mirror looking at the girl at the backseat. She was looking indifferently into the window at the evening city. She seemed zoned out and somewhere not in this old dirty car. Darnell felt uncomfortable and gave a little shiver. How was he supposed to take care of this girl? He didn’t even have pets, and his only relations were not too long-lasting or successful. His acquaintances quickly vanished in thin air considering his character unbearable, and he was actually fine with that. He got used to his solitude so much that loneliness became his best friend. Just rarely his soul started to ask for at least someone else by his side to start feeling himself like a normal person whom he had never been.

Darnell parked his car at his habitual parking lot near his home. Not only his co-workers didn’t dare to occupy his place near the Agency, but also the residents of the house didn’t dare to occupy it. Probably a few crushed bumpers made their deal when Darnell was returning home not in his best condition, and later pretended it wasn’t him smashing neighbors’ cars. He sighed and left the car, opening the door for the girl. She gave him another contemptuous glaze and got out of the car, crossing her hands on her chest. Darnell noticed that she shivered from the autumn cold a little, and hurried to grab her trunk and lead her to the ten-story building. 

“I live on the fifth floor,” - suddenly pronounced Darnell while walking to the elevator. The silence with another person by his side was pressing on him more and more. However, he thought that he would have to get used to this, as the child was speechless. The doors of the elevator opened and Darnell came in keeping on thinking over his life the next month. He has never even thought of having children despite his age. He often felt like a lost child himself, and now there was some small martyr by his side, and she was a girl.

“Ridiculous. That’s some bullshit,” - he growled to himself. Madeleine suddenly shook up and pointed at him, making an angry face. - “Oh my god, fine, sorry, I won’t swear,” - Darnell rolled his eyes up.

The elevator opened its doors letting its passengers go into a semi-dark hall. A bulb on the wall was missing, and Darnell was sure that he was the reason for that. He only remembered being really outraged with his recent missions at work the other day when he was returning home, and then the damned bulb blew up near him scattering him with small pieces of glass and making even angrier. But still, he couldn’t make himself get the new one and change it. 

Darnell had been living in this place for the last 8 years. When he just started working in the Agency, he managed to quickly earn good money and to buy a small burrow in an average district. However, with time, he started to lose ground, and his job went down, as well as his earnings. The biggest part of his strength was spent on his fight with the inner demon, and the lion’s share of the money was devoured by cigarettes and alcohol. Darnell wasn’t even quite sure if there was anything edible in his fridge.

He stopped near the left door at the end of the long hallway. It was marked all over with protective symbols and spells. This scared away not only uninvited demons but also uninvited neighbors. When he inserted a key into the lock, he felt Madeleine pulling the flap of his coat.

“Now what?” he sighed and turned to the girl. She carefully pointed at the half-opened door located opposite to his. Darnell rolled his eyes up. “Agnes, I can see you.”

“Hu-fu-fu,” said the female voice from the other side of the door. First, the big circles of glasses with thick rim showed from behind it, then the red mop rolled into a slovenly bun on top, fixated with a chewed pencil, and finally their owner. The girl in an oversized t-shirt with a symbol of Superman on it smiled oily, shining with braces.

“Hello, Darnell, don’t get me wrong, it was just Mr. Muffin. He was the one who felt that you were coming. He sensed you from the first floor, as he always does.”

“Mu-a-a-wn!” the bass voice reached from behind the door. A huge grey cat’s face showed near the feet of Agnes and fixed its toxic-green gaze into Darnell. “Pfsh-h-h-h!”

 “That frigging beast can sense the demon inside of me,” thought Darnell crossly.

“Hi, sorry, but I’m busy now,” the man turned back to his door.