The Dark Room, Part 2 of 4

Hello and welcome to the second chapter of the Dark Room. Bear in mind, dear reader that this is an older story for me, with elements of supernatural horror, and as such it may prove too much for some to read. The content in this regard is somewhat PG-13. The premise of the story reflects my own feelings at the time, and how I felt toward life in general, "in the dark" more or less. I hope you enjoy the story, just read it with a pinch of salt. Dragonmarch chapter 2 will be coming shortly, and no worries: Stormfyre is not forgotten! God bless!

“Harold?” Sarah called his name aloud, aghast at how swiftly the blackness stole her words from her lips. Shaking away the notion of the sentience manifest in the darkness around her, Sarah called to him again. He didn’t answer.

            “Are you…alright?” her words faltered.

            Her hands trailed over his arm to his chest, and she felt it rise and fall steadily, slowly. He was alive. She sighed a mild relief, realizing that when he woke he would be dangerous, violent toward her. Despite the anxiety it made stir in her heart, Sarah knew that she had to leave him. Being alone in the blackness was better than certain death at the hands of this man. Sarah forced herself to stand, listening to the slow rhythm of Harold’s breathing for a short while, then she turned and began to walk from him. She felt as though hope were behind her, false as it might be, and she was casting it away, giving up life for the slow, numbing walk into unending darkness.

            Sarah’s senses were dulled by the concussion she received from her fall, but she strained her ears for traces of sound. There were none to be found, and the disturbing lack of an echo gave her pause for concern. Again, as from the first, she was alone in this dreadful place, and there may not be hope of finding another to share her lonely world with her. But that was a better alternative to taking her chances with Harold.

            As she walked her pace quickened until she was practically running, running toward nowhere. She dared tripping again, even if that meant further harm, because it might at least mean that someone else was in the darkness with her. A sound gave her pause, and Sarah slowed to a crawl, straining to hear it. It came again. It was the sound of a groan, somewhere behind her.

            “Sarah!” came Harold’s cry, making her start. She caught her breath, not daring to move as if he might sense where she was through the sea of black that separated them. “Sarah, where are you?”

            She began to call back, but bit her tongue as the words formed. No, he would have to suffer alone, as she did. At least someone else alive was roaming the room with her. It was a cold comfort that was bitter to swallow, but it would have to be. She turned from him and began to march blindly back into the dark.

            “Sarah!” Harold’s scream was a lion’s roar piercing the black, stabbing at her like a sharpened blade. “What are you doing? You’re leaving me alone? Where are you going to go, Sarah? Where are you going to go where I can’t find you? I’ll find you!”

            Sarah ran, terror empowering her as Harold ranted like a man possessed behind her, his voice caught in the webs of the darkness, hanging there, bound by unseen threads for the predator that wove them. At length she found the wall, almost colliding with it, her probing arms finding it just in time to keep her from serious injury. Hyperventilating, she craned her had to listen for Harold. He had gone quiet, and she found that she liked that even less. Shivering, she sank down against the wall and sat there, pondering her next move.

            All at once the hair on the back of her neck rose, and Sarah knew that she wasn’t alone. She stood slowly, regarding the darkness with renewed fair that surpassed the fear Harold inspired in her. Something malignant lingered just out of sight, and it was watching her, seeing her as easily as if the room were flooded with light. She cowered, feeling the base instinct for survival welling up in her. Something terrible was just out of her reach, and if it so much as touched her she might go mad from it. Shivering, she slunk along the wall, holding her breath and praying fervently, beads of sweat forming on her brow as she scraped along. There was no need for eyes, so great was the feeling of the presence in her mind, and all she could think to do was escape its sight, if such a thing were even possible. Harold was suddenly not so bad. Sarah sucked in her breath to call for him, but the instant she opened her mouth the blackness snaked in and stole her very words from her, pilfering her strength and leaving her feeble, cowering. Sobbing silently, cradling her head in her hands, Sarah sank slowly to the floor as she waited for the presence in the dark to reach out and take her.

            As quickly as the terror came upon her it faded, leaving her breathless and panting from the experience. She raised her head, barely daring to breath so that she didn’t draw its attention again. She wouldn’t dismiss it a second time. There was something in here with her. Something that wasn’t human. Something that may not even be alive, or have ever known life.

            “I could hear you until just a minute ago,” a voice came that shattered the brooding silence surrounding her, and Sarah almost bit her tongue with surprise. “You stopped breathing, and I lost you. I’d really like it if you started breathing again so I knew that there was someone else in this room besides myself. I was starting to wonder if stumbled into some warped Twilight Zone episode.”

            “Who are you?” Sarah called out in less than a whisper, “Where are you?”

            “You don’t have to whisper, miss,” the man assured her soothingly. “As far as I can tell, we’re the only two people in this room. Is it dark in here?”

            “Is it dark in here?” Sarah repeated incredulously. “What do you think? Is it not dark enough for you?”

            “I don’t know. It’s always dark for me. I’m blind.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, feeling a rush of heat spread over her face. She could tell that it seeped into her voice and she drew in a breath to calm herself. Not even the presence of another person would make her forget what just happened, what had almost happened…

            Sarah pushed the image from her mind and rose, calling out to him.

            “My name is Sarah. Who are you?”

            “Michael. Come to the sound of my voice, Sarah.”

            “I’m not sure where your voice is coming from,” Sarah admitted. “I’m not comfortable moving around in this darkness, and there seems to be a lack of noise in here. Have you noticed that?”

            Michael paused before he answered, as if he were debating how he should answer her. “There does seem to be something wrong with the echo in this room. If it’s as big as I think it is, then our voices should carry quite a ways, or at least I would have thought. But never mind. I’ll come to you. Alright?”

            “Alright,” Sarah agreed softly, leaning back on the wall and closing her eyes, not that the act made much difference. Never in her life did she realize what her eyes meant to her. But now, totally deprived of them, a flight of fancy in the darkness reduced her to a blathering child, and it transformed Harold into a brooding machine of pent of anger. It was if the lack of sight, their inability to see each other, gave them leave to release repressed notions and ideas that their rational minds kept in check while there was light to produce consequence and guilt. But here, in the dark where no one saw, what was consequence?

            She started a little when a hand touched her, but the touch was gentle and she relaxed almost instantly. Michael already seemed so different than Harold, and it didn’t take a genius to fathom why. If Michael was telling the truth and he was genuinely blind, then this was no different to him than any other day of his life. Save that he was kidnapped, like them, and woke up in a strange room with two strangers.

            “Do you live in Duluth, Sarah?” Michael asked when he took a place against the wall beside her.

            “I’m a waitress at a diner on Grand Avenue,” she told him. “Nothing special.”

            “I’m just seeing if we come from the same city,” Michael admitted. She marveled at how calm his tone was, considering the circumstance. His peace was contagious, and the terrific panic that had seized her just minutes ago dissolved enough to allow her a moment of quiet thought.

            “Have you met anyone else?” Michael asked.

            “A man named Harold,” Sarah answered reluctantly. “He…attacked me and I ran from him just a little bit ago.”

            “He attacked you?”

            “He found out that his wife was cheating,” she told him.

            “Are you his wife?” Michael asked.

            “No!” Sarah retorted, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “No,” she told him more calmly. “I just met him in here, in this room.”

            “Do you know where he is now?”

            “He attacked me,” Sarah repeated. “I fought back, and I knocked him out, I think. He woke back up and started screaming and threatening me. I ran over here, wherever here is, and then you came a minute or two after…”

            “What didn’t you tell me?” Michael inquired, making Sarah withdraw.

            “I don’t know what you mean.”

            “You failed to tell me something, Sarah. When you lack eyes you get very good at reading people’s tones. You skipped over something while you were telling me about Harold. What did you omit?”

            “Omit?” Sarah laughed a little, and found the act of doing so comforting. “Who says omit anymore? Are you a college student?”

            “I was, a few years ago. Now I’m a clerk for a law firm. It’s just a glorified way of saying that I’m their secretary.”

            “That’s better than being a waitress,” Sarah returned.

            “You’re avoiding the subject,” Michael reminded her pointedly. “What were you going to add a minute ago?”

            Sarah considered what she was about to tell Michael. What she was about to say was ridiculous, but then again, so was their current situation. “I think that there’s something else in here with us. When I first woke, and I was alone, I could swear that I heard…something walking toward me while I was calling for someone to answer. I thought, at first, that it was my imagination, and when I ran into Harold I let it go. But then after I ran away from him, I felt it again.”

            She shook with the recurrence of memory and she wrapped her arms tightly about her chest, as though cradling herself. The power of the presence still overcame her senses, and she half-felt that it turned and looked at her from somewhere in this black place simply because she knew it now. She knew it, and it knew her.

            “Are you alright, Sarah?” Michael broke into her fears, slipping an arm over her shoulders. She shook him away by reflex and his arm shot away from her as if she burned him. Her mouth opened to utter an apology but it never came.

            “I was scared half to death just before you arrived,” she told him after an awkward moment of silence. “There was something standing in front of me, and I was so scared of it that I just fell to the floor and laid there, waiting for it to do whatever it felt like doing.”

            “Could you define what you felt a little better?” Michael questioned sincerely. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
            “I’m not sure what I’m talking about,” Sarah admitted. “I know how weird this sounds, but it’s the truth. I have no idea what it was that I felt, but it really scared me. It didn’t even have to make a noise. In fact, I think the whole soundless bit scared me more than someone or something screaming at me. I didn’t even know if there was really something in front of me.”

            “If you feel that strongly, then there must have been,” Michael assured her plainly. “We’ll have to be careful while we’re looking around.”

            “Looking around?” Sarah quipped. “Very funny, Michael.”

            “Hey, I don’t see anything ever, remember? For me, this is looking around.” They began to feel along the wall, and Sarah reached forward until she found the hem of Michael’s jacket near the waist, clutching it with a death grip, afraid that if she let go he might dissolve into the gloom surrounding her, leaving her alone again. The last place she wanted to be. Michael seemed to sense this and she felt his hand slowly close over her own, waiting to see if she would tug it away. Sarah fought the urge to remove it, but it was a better link to a living, breathing person than simply the edge of a coat and she tightened her grip on his hand.

            “What did this Harold think was going on?” Michael asked as they went on.

            “That the government kidnapped us and we’re a part of a military war game, or something like that.”

            “Elaborate,” Michael chuckled. “I like that. Harold is a conspiracy theorist, and a sci-fi nut.”

            “Are you a secretary, or a therapist?” Sarah laughed.

            “I’ll tell you what: I’m not a trekkie, that’s for sure. I never did get the whole allure of the science fiction thing.”

            There was a sudden crunch under Michael’s foot, a sound so distinctly different that it made both of them leap at once. Michael stepped back and moved in front of Sarah, as if to protect her, and they waited for a brief moment. Michael sighed, and Sarah herself realized that she was neglecting to breathe and let out the stale air in one strong breath.

            “What was that?” she asked quietly, peering over his shoulder despite how useless the gesture was.

            “Something small,” Michael informed her. “Small and hard.” He knelt down and began to feel along the floor and Sarah ducked down to join him. She scrambled along on her hands and knees, slowly sweeping her arms out and keeping her palms flat against the cold stone under her while she felt for whatever Michael stepped on. It took only a minute to find, and when her hand closed around it she gasped.

            “My lighter!” she hissed, clutching the item tightly and standing so fast she almost fell back over. She held the thing as if it were her lifeline, running her hands over the surface of the lighter to discern whether or not it was still capable of being used. Michael stood beside her.

            “Does it work?”

            Sarah flicked the lighter once, and not even a tiny spark escaped it, much to her dismay. “I think you might have crushed it,” she told him, disappointment heavy in her tone.

            “My mother always told me that I wasn’t the most graceful boy,” Michael patted her shoulder lightly. “I’m sorry.”

            “You didn’t know it would be there,” Sarah said truthfully, despite how angry she felt that the lighter might be broken. Her only chance at seeing this terrible place and getting a better bearing, and the slight hope the lighter instilled may have been dashed by one misstep.

            “If you manage to light that, your friend Harold might see it and come running, you know.”

            That thought froze her hand in place. The last thing she wanted was Harold bounding back, filled with rage from their parting. Sarah had the notion that he was not the forgiving kind. She stuffed the lighter in her pocket for the time being and sought until she found Michael’s hand again.

            “Let’s just hope that we can find some sheltered place that I can play with this, then. I’d love to get a look at what this room looks like.”

            “Be careful what you wish for,” Michael warned her as they began to wander in the dark along the length of the wall again, lost in their own individual thoughts. The air about them was palpable, clinging to Sarah with an added weight that threatened to drag her to her knees, and she pulled on Michael’s hand to keep herself aloft. The darkness had yet to alter from what it had been since her first waking moment here; a cold, dry and dead feel that surrounded her so thoroughly that it almost succeeded in driving away even the memory of what light meant. For security she patted the pocket that she slipped her lighter into. She prayed that it would actually spark when it came time to make use of it.

            She staggered suddenly, her foot stepping down on something uneven that rolled under her weight. Sarah caught her balance easily enough and gingerly moved back, tugging on Michael’s hand to get him to stop.

            “What did you step on?” he asked quietly.

            “I don’t know,” she told him. “It felt like a smooth piece of metal, kind of round.” Sarah stooped down and felt for the item that she almost slipped on, keeping tight hold of Michael for fear that something else might grab her back. But her hand came over the item and she paused curiously, feeling it from tip to tip. The object was round and metal, indented on one side and conical toward the center, with many perforations that the fingers could get trapped in. It was light enough to life with so much ease and Sarah brought it up, pressing it into Michael’s hand.

            “Is this a hubcap?” she wondered aloud, confusion plain in her voice.

            “I think it is,” Michael replied, running his hands over the surface of the hubcap.

            “If there’s a car in here we can use its headlights to see where we are!” Sarah exclaimed. She broke away from Michael and began to half-crawl, half-run further into the center of the mammoth room, heedless of the dangers that might surround her.

            “Sarah wait! We don’t know if there’s a car in here! We don’t even know if it will run if we find one! Don’t get separated from me!”

            But Sarah failed to heed him, so eager was she to locate the vehicle that the hubcap came from. If she found the care and there were keys in the ignition, she could drive around this terrible place instead of walking blind. The liberty of being secluded, isolated inside a car was a very welcome thought. The presence that came to her a short while ago would be shut out, and she would be free of the darkness, free to see again. But what would she see? Sarah concluded that she no longer cared how terrible or awful the sight of the room was, she just wanted to lay eyes on it. She had never wanted something so badly in all her life, and that helpless desperation made her strong in her hunt. She would find the car, no matter what.

            Then it came to her. The lighter. She could flick the lighter and see if it glowed enough to give her some radius of light. It may attract Harold, but could he reach her before she reached the car? If they were close enough to find a hubcap, then they must be closer to it than Harold, wherever he was. She pulled the lighter out of her pocket with hands layered with sweat and raised it over her head.

            “I’m going to shed some light on the area, Michael.”

            “Sarah?” came Michael’s voice, and it was farther than she guessed he would be. She moved quickly when she broke away from him, scampering toward the center of the room, and Michael sounded like he was a hundred yards behind her. But that couldn’t be right. She had only been away from him for a couple of minutes, unless Michael began looking for her in the wrong direction…

            It didn’t matter. Sarah had to light the lighter. She had to see where she was, and if there was a vehicle nearby. It had to be their way out.

            “Sarah!” Michael cried out in frustration. “I can’t hear you!”

            “I’ll come get you!” Sarah replied confidently, smiling in the blackness. “As soon as I find the car!”

            Triumphantly she flicked the lighter. Not even a tiny sparked was emitted. Reigning in a sudden wave of disappointment and anger, Sarah wiped her hands methodically on her pants legs. Raising the lighter again, she flicked it once more. Again, there was no light. Cursing bitterly, quietly, she shook the lighter violently before trying it over and over again. Still the lighter failed in its simple task and Sarah reared her arm back to pitch the offending item as far into the gloom as she could hurl it. A sound made her stop. There had been a scuffing noise just before her, as if a foot were being dragged across the stone floor. It had stopped when she did, and she was suddenly frozen in fear. That was the noise she heard when she first woke and was calling out for someone. It was dragging closer to her, coming for her.

            Sarah stepped back hesitantly, afraid to move in any direction, regretting her rash search that took her so far from Michael. Now she was at the mercy of the presence again. Or was she? The malevolence of the presence that confronted her was as physical, as real as the darkness that shrouded all of them. But it wasn’t here. What stood in front of her, she wondered? Mustering the greatest moment of courage she had ever summoned, Sarah held the lighter out again and flicked it.

            To her surprise the lighter sparked to life with a single flame of yellow-white. On the opposite end of the flame stood the bloodied, contorted face of Harold. His eyes were fixed in a rage and his lips were set so tightly that they were just thin lines on his face. Half his head was matted with blood that seeped along his cheek and neck from a jagged gash on his forehead. He grinned wickedly at her, then his fist appeared. Sarah felt a blunt, horrible ache that exploded on the side of her face, then she felt no more, save for the sinking feel of unwanted sleep rushing out of the many shadows to claim her.

            It might have been hours afterward when she woke. She was laying on her side, pressed up against something unyielding, but it was not the wall. Her head throbbed in rhythm with her heart, but that let her know she was still alive. There a faint smell like gasoline somewhere not too far off, and that gave her more hope that there was car nearby. But that must have meant Harold found it before them. If that was the case, why didn’t he drive off in it? Michael may have been right, she reflected. There may not have been any keys in it. She laughed suddenly. There might not have been any car to begin with. It was simply one more piece of a twisted puzzle to aggravate and confuse the pour souls trapped in here. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to find Michael again.

            Straining to stand up, she tensed when she heard more movement not far from her. She waited with baited breath, then gave a muffled squeal when a hard kick found her ribs, lifting her from her crouching position. She gave a pathetic effort to speak but found that she could barely breathe. Instead she settled back to the floor and curled into a ball as she did before, when her boyfriend came for her on a night not so long ago. It was the night that drove her over the edge, and gave her the final reason she needed to leave him, gave her the courage to care for her own life. God gave her the strength then, she would wait on Him to give him the strength now. She just had to placate Harold until then.

            A rough hand snagged a handful of her hair, wrapping it tightly in his fist and yanking her to her knees. Sarah felt like screaming bloody murder from the agonizing sensation of her hair being ripped out by the follicles but she bit her tongue, refusing to grant him the pleasure. She dug her nails into her thighs and waited, looking blindly up at the ceiling that may or may not be above them. A strange notion occurred to her right then. Nothing existed beyond sight, save in theory. Theoretically, the walls and ceiling of this dark room surrounded them and gave definition to the drama that unfolded within, but the human eye could not discern them, so, to the observer, they did not exist. Is that what it meant to be atheist, she wondered dimly?

            Harold shook her roughly, trying to elicit a sound from her suffering. When she gave him none he growled and tossed her back to the floor where she lay very quietly. They liked it better when you tried to fight back, she reasoned. It made them feel more powerful.

            “You split my face, you little witch,” Harold snapped, stomping down a few inches from her face. She felt the wind from where his shoe came down and thanked God that he didn’t catch her head. Seeing as how Harold was as blind as she was, he might have been trying to stomp on her face.

            “Did you go out and find someone else to search with? Isn’t that convenient for you? Just leave my alone in this place and take up with some other guy! Where is this guy right now? Did you leave him behind too?”

            “You know,” Sarah answered angrily. “You were standing ten feet from me half the time, anyhow while I was talking to him, Harold. He’s still looking for me, maybe even all the way across this room by now. Did you find the car, Harold?”

            “Do you think I’d be here if I found a car?” Harold laughed and sank down to the floor beside her. “There is no car! There were some bits and pieces of one scattered around the floor, left here by whoever put us here. But if you really want transit, there’s a bus behind you.”

            “What?” Sarah asked dubiously. She slid a tentative hand across the sprawling surface of some overturned vehicle that she had been laying against when she woke again. It might well have been a bus.”

            “What is this?” she inquired.

            “I told you: it’s a bus. A turned over bus, to be exact. I can’t climb onto the thing to get inside, to see if anyone else is in there.”

            “What if someone’s hurt in there?” Sarah tried to stand, but the beating Harold gave her told, and her legs folded, bringing her back to the floor in a rush. “There might be someone that needs our help!”
            “From a waitress?” Harold retorted sharply.

            “Are you something that makes you so much better than I am, Harold?”

            “I’m the owner of my own towing company, thank you. I’m self employed, and I have been for the last ten years.”

            “You’re such a charmer, too,” Sarah added acidly. “Money and personality. How can one man get so lucky?”

            “Watch your mouth,” Harold warned, his tone filled with menace. “I don’t care what happens to you in here. Remember that. If you manage to come with me when I find my way out of here, that’s fine. I’ll drop you in a ditch the first minute you become a problem.”

            “You were awake before me, weren’t you?” Sarah asked. Harold gave no response. He didn’t even move. Sarah sat up despite the rush of blood that protested her actions.

            “You were the noise in the dark when I first woke, weren’t you? I wasn’t hearing things! You were dragging your feet and scaring the crap out of me while I was trying to find help!”

            “What does it matter if I was? What does anything matter when you’re trapped in some place like this? I was awake and wandering for almost an hour by my guess when you woke up and started making noise, then you lit that lighter of yours, and I came to you. You can imagine horrific things when you’re alone in the dark.”

            “We aren’t alone in the dark, not in this room,” Sarah warned him. “Something else is in here with us. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it once, standing right in front of me, and I don’t want to feel that again.”

            “Nice try, sweetheart,” Harold chuckled coldly. “Trying to scare me to get me back for scaring you? I’m afraid. Ghosts in the shadows, is that what you’re saying? I don’t believe in ghosts, not even in here.”

            “I’m not saying ghosts!” Sarah snapped at the risk of incurring more of Harold’s wrath. “There are other things than ghosts to worry about. Remember I told you that I’m a Catholic.”

            “God and His angels are roaming around down here with us?”

            “Demons,” Sarah retorted pointedly.

            She recoiled when his slap found her face, the unexpected force of the blow making her head collide and rebound with the side of the overturned bus that she was leaning against. Hot blood filled her mouth from a gash inside her cheek and she spat it out in what she hoped was his direction. She must have missed because he didn’t say anything.

            “You can’t say one thing about me being crazy, Sarah. Keep your religious babble to yourself. You reason demons, and you shoot down my idea about kidnapping? Wow. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? I see you’ve spent a little too much time in the darkness.”

            “You’re welcome to turn me out any time you want,” Sarah told him.

            “I don’t think so,” Harold answered crossly. “Crazy or not, you’re the only company I’ve found in this place since I woke up. And I might get lonely.”

            He yanked her to her feet, holding her tightly by the arm as he began to drag her with him along the length of the bus. She didn’t struggle with him, instead turning her senses outward to catch any hint that Michael might be near. Surely Michael would have an advantage over Harold, being blind. But would Michael even find them in this place? There were obstructions after all, some of them obviously rather large. Her heart felt like it had just sank into her stomach at the prospect of being led by Harold, alone, through this awful room.

            “I have your lighter,” Harold informed her out of the blue, making her start.

            “Did you use it? Is there something to see out there besides this bus?”

            “I haven’t used it yet,” Harold replied tersely. “You don’t know who’s watching out there.”

            “If it is the military, Harold, they have infrared and stuff like that. They already know where we are and what we’re doing. There’s no point in not using it right now to see if we can’t figure a way out of here.”

            He stopped abruptly and his grip grew intense as he spun mechanically to face her. “You see,” he said in a rasp, not half a foot from her face. She could feel his hot breath washing over her and she suppressed a shiver. “This is exactly why we started fighting last time, Sarah. You seem to think that you have all the good ideas, while my head is filled with rocks. Now, shut up or I’m going to empty your head all over this floor. Is that clear enough for you?”

            “Crystal clear,” she intoned almost silently.

            “I’m not lighting your lighter because your buddy might be out there, looking for some clue on how to find you. Your mine now, and I’m keeping you with me. He had his chance to keep you, but you wandered off, and that’s his and your loss.” Before Sarah could muster an argument he planted a brutal kiss on her mouth, almost catching her nose in the dark, pressing himself hard against her and hurting her aching head fiercely.

            Sarah responded by shooting out her free hand and grabbing his groin, then squeezing with all the strength she could find. It was enough to make Harold collapse in a heartbeat, moaning some unintelligible words as he rolled at her feet in the fetal position. She leaned down, patted his face, and then spat on him as she fetched her lighter back from his hand, which cradled his wounded anatomy.

            “Do the world a favor, Harold,” Sarah hissed sweetly in his ear as he moaned in pain, rocking back and forth. “Don’t swim in the gene pool anymore. You’re polluting it.”