A World of Darkness Read online

  She looks towards. She always does so when I sit down beside her. But sometimes I am not sure if she notices me at all. Perhaps her head is turned to this side just by chance. Her eyes look dull; her pupils are covered by a milky film. Once ago these eyes had been of an impressive blue. In romantic novels one often reads about the deep lakes one can find inside the eyes of beautiful women and that one could be lost in them forever while diving to the bottom of paradise. With Sarah these words had not just been canting.

  Her bright eyes had been enlivened by a childlike, curious life. When she had looked at you the world around had become completely meaningless, even if that might sound like cliché. But one look into this fathomless blue – these deep, mysterious lakes – and you had become obsessed by the wish to do everything for the owner of these admirable, powerful eyes. Now her eyes are dead. The blue sea is covered by an everlasting dense fog that makes every colour a dull grey. Her mouth is open; her lips are chapped and grey. I am hit by a faint sour breath that resembles the breath one knows from the moment of awaking in the mornings. I stroke her hair that is hanging unkempt into her forehead. I try to comb her hair whenever it’s possible, but I usually I just manage to wash her and to change her clothes before she closes her eyes and falls asleep again.

  With tender movements I try to arrange her grey curls. The skin on her forehead is dry and scabby and beneath her eyes there are dark shadows.

  “Sarah”, I whisper silently, kissing her forehead. A fetid of sweat and fresh excrements hits my nose.

  “Darling, I brought you something to eat.”

  I turn towards her, so that the tray on my knees is balancing between us.

  “And there is some fresh tea, too.”

  The smell coming from the teapot brings along memories that still hurt me like at the first day. A single tear rolls down my cheek.

  “Come on, darling. Let’s have some food before it gets cold.”

  The porridge has almost completely cooled down. I put my left hand below Sarah’s head in order to support her, while my right hand is dipping the spoon into the porridge. As I put the spoon into her mouth a gentle sigh leaves between her rough lips. I neither know if she notices me nor if she feels that she is fed. Sometimes the pupils beneath the milky mucosa of her eyes move, but most of the time they are just staring at me ashen coloured.

  While I’m feeding Sarah I in a low voice begin to hum “Blue Spanish Eyes”, which is our shared favourite song.

  Meanwhile the grey gap between the window shutters is revealing a cavernous darkness.

  Some time I take a seat inside the large wicker chair in front of the window, which is directed towards Sarah, so that I while sitting there am able to watch her. She has fallen asleep now that I had changed her diapers. The fetid is still hanging in the air, but I don’t notice it.

  I listen to her contented buzzing and once in a while breathing deeply. Then I also shut my eyes and the ghastly silence of this dead world carries me away into an uneasy sleep.

  I got to refill our stocks, I barely manage to think..

  Then I fall asleep.

  II

  Sarah has made me a passionate swimmer. Even when I had met her first at my brother’s house I had immerged into her deep blue eyes. And this exhilarating colour is all that makes up my little world today.

  While walking beside her I again and again throw some hideous glance at her. She holds her head bend down, so that her face is hidden inside the shadows of her long hair. In doing so she can’t catch me in the act of looking at her over and over again. Even the grey shadow, which she is throwing onto the pavement and which gets distorted by the street lamps resembles erotic.

  I like the way our two shadows harmonize onto the grey street. Somehow I get a vague feeling that the both outlines could belong together. As we are leaving one lantern behind the both of us get protracted and when the next lamp comes in sight we for a short moment disappear. I am tempted to take her hand and by doing so letting our shadows melt, but just the thought of this is absurd.

  This evening is the first of myriad evenings for us to come. So I keep my wish to myself and concentrate on appearing as respectable as possible to Sarah.

  She doesn’t speak a lot and if she does she speaks in a low voice. Most of the time I am also silent, because I know that most women don’t appreciate their male companions talking too much.

  It has been a week now that I had been back from Europe.

  “Having a break”, I had called my trip across the Atlantic Ocean.

  I had been fed up with my dreary nine-to-five-job as well as with my associate’s well kept masks and the dazzling neon light I had had to bear eight hours a day.

  All of that combined to the bustling rattle of the typewriters had convinced me that it was time for a few weeks of vacation and to leave this mechanized and boring life behind me.

  My savings enabled me to a journey throughout Europe. So I ardently visited the continent’s metropolises; of which I before had only come to know from magazines and the TV. Paris, London, Athens and Munich had been only some of the places I visited on my odyssey. And in spite of the hustle and bustle, the noisy crowds and the restlessness that I found in each of these cities by far outmatched the hustle inside an office, I liked it there.

  The second evening that I was safely back at home, my brother Alan had invited me to his home to enjoy a placid meal and spend the evening with him and his wife Sheila.

  To this occasion Sheila’s best friend Sarah had been invited, too.

  I didn’t know whether this had been chance or a put-up affair, but I definitely appreciated Alan and Sheila’s arrangement. Because from this evening on blue was my favourite colour.

  It took me two other days until I had found the courage to dial Sarah’s number, which Sheila had given to me with a wink. And then I still had to wait another two days till I found me walking through the streets of our little town when the next lamp comes in sight.

  We are on our way to a small restaurant that Alan had recommended to me.

  When I think of sitting opposite to Sarah while I eat my meal, I go weak at the knees. I know that I’ll be staring at her and behaving like a shy little boy. Moreover I will compliment her for her magnificent eyes, something she must have heard a hundred times before. And I’ll tell her about my adventures at work until she gets so bored that she’ll turn her back on me.

  “This evening will be special”, I although think, with every step I take towards the restaurant getting more and more nervous.

  It might sound strange, but I don’t want these two shadows onto the dreary pavement ever to be parted again …

  A drawn-out, inhuman howl gets me to startle. I look around confusedly. The candle has come to its end. The light of the kerosene lamp is still steady. The shadows inside the room have turned into a forgotten grey. I can hear a faint snore coming from Sarah’s bed. A look to the window shutter affirms my guess that I had fallen asleep in the evening and spent all night in the wicker chair.

  The howl …

  I stare frightened at the grey gap between the shutters. The new day breaks just as dark as the days before.

  I listen intensely for nearly a minute. But this eerie noise, which had been the only sound that had broken the silence for days, doesn’t recur.

  I throw a faint glance on the watch at my wrist. It was Sarah’s last present to me. I turn my arm, so that the yellow lamp light lights up the watch glass. Almost eight o’clock, the night is over. One doesn’t hear them by day. The howl has to come from a last dead creature.

  I glance at Sarah again. She looks peaceful. Her chest lifts while she is slowly breathing. She hadn’t even noticed that I didn’t lie beside her that night. She often doesn’t even know that I am with her. Or that she is still alive …

  My bones ache from the long night in the chair. Although I always try to convince myself to be comparatively hale for my age, I right now feel belied. It costs me a lot of effort to reach my b
ed, where I fall down on the mattress with a hoarse moan. While I try to knead my aching back with my hand I look at Sarah’s quiet, sleeping face. Her lids flutter. I ask myself of what she might be dreaming right now. Is she still able to dream at all?

  The skin on her cheeks looks tight. In the light of the kerosene lamp and of the dawn she is of a sickly yellowish colour. Her lips are just a punched line, dry and rough. A gleamy spur of spittle is trickling from the corner of her mouth and running down her cheek towards her throat.

  “Tell me your dreams”, I whisper, running her sweaty hair out of her forehead. It feels like I was touching hard steel wool.

  She shortly moves under my touch. Her face seems to move up towards me. A soundless wheeze escapes her throat.

  I think back to my dream of last night. Fragments of it have settled into my sub consciousness.

  They are Sarah’s eyes and our shadows on a rough, grey pavement; my fear of sitting down opposite to her. But it is mostly the unruly wish that our shadows might never be separated.

  With trembling fingers I take her hand in mine and press it gently. I know that I have to treat her tenderly because of her body having become fragile, a shadow of the old strong Sarah, to whom I used to hold on to.

  Sometimes I get the feeling that she replies my pressure on her hand. But I know that these just the wishes of a lonely, old man. Her hand is lying limp and cold in mine.

  On the small bedside table beside the bed stands the tray with some leftover of porridge on it. That reminds me of the things I got to do today.

  After washing Sarah with a washrag and changing her clothes I sit down to her again and regard her haggard face. Pictures of my dream are trying to creep into my memory, but I block them out.

  “I go to Murphy’s” I say in a low voice, bending over, so that Sarah should be better able to hear me. I know that she doesn’t, but I used to do so for a long time. And used-to dos are all what is left of the time we had shared.

  “We are running out of supplies.”

  I glance at the narrow streak of light, which is lazily soaking in through the gaps in the window shutter.

  “I just hope Murphy’s fine.”

  I say these last words to myself while nervously holding Sarah’s cold hand in mine. Lost in thought I add … and that he is still alive. It had been ten days that I last saw Murphy.

  The world had been alright then. We had had electricity and water. And in the evenings I had been able to sit down in front of the TV and watch a recap of “Quincy” on the TV series channel. Of course with that I had had a cup of tea, just like in the olden days.

  But the world has moved on, I think to myself.

  I remain looking at the sickish streak of daylight, spreading on the carpet like a dirty puddle.

  The world outside of the window shutters has fallen silent and nobody knows what had really happened. During the first two days, when we still had had electricity, I saw some things at TV that I at first hadn’t found interesting. They spoke of terrorist assaults and revenge and of germs that had been set free. Just as I had begun to listen more attentive to the nervous news anchors’ words, electricity had dropped out and I haven’t been able get it back up till now.

  I don’t get a newspaper any more, too. Young Daryll didn’t appear since … – what … the silence? – had begun. Young Daryll didn’t ever show his face again. But I said so before. So I am depending on what my fantasy makes from the little news I had realized consciously. And the result of my nightly pondering doesn’t please me at all.

  Even the phone is dead. And Sarah and I never had possessed a mobile. I often had talked to Murphy on the phone before. These conversations never had been long. Men just say what they have to say. This is one of the basic differences between men and women.

  Suddenly I begin to worry about Murphy. It has been ten days since I had been last to his store. That had been briefly before the world went to the dogs. I wonder why I hadn’t thought of driving to Murphy and asking him if he knew better what was going on before.

  Somehow I never had thought so far. Perhaps it’s because I am an old man – I try to avoid dotage and words of that kind. But maybe I’m only afraid of what I will get to see if I drive the way down to Murphy’s little cabin, in which he is living and running his general store. Since it had begun I didn’t hear a car driving by or any other noises reminding me of a somewhat animate world out there. But the empty larder in the kitchen forces me into leaving the safety of home, if I like it or not.

  With another moan on my lips I bend down to Sarah and kiss her on the forehead. She smells off fresh soap, but this isn’t able to cover the scent of death.

  “I’ll be back soon, darling”, I whisper. Then I cover her and quench the small flame of the kerosene lamp. “I’ll bring along some tea.”

  In the meantime there is enough daylight falling through the closed shutters for me to move safely between the grey shadows inside the house. On a small bureau in front of the bedroom lies my old shotgun. I never liked this weapon and in all these years never have used it. But Sarah always had reckoned that having some protection at hand in this far off neighbourhood would calm her down.

  This is why I more than twenty years ago had bought that gun in Devon, which is the town next in size here, and then had stored it away inside a purpose-made locker. Because Sarah and I had completely forgotten about it, it for all those years had been standing there untouched.

  It is a 12 bore AYA shotgun, which I also would have been able to get in a more powerful version. But I had had no idea of weapons then; and in our peaceful hillside neighbourhood a 12 bore shotgun seemed to be sufficient.

  It has not been until now that I broke it out again, being surprised that it still is in working order. I cleaned and oiled it and checked the cartridge chamber as well as the twin barrel. Everything seems to be okay. At first I thought that I for sure wouldn’t have to use the gun. I actually took it out of the closet just to do Sarah a favour. I have always been anticipating her every wish. I do so up till now, even if she probably never will come to know that I after all these years took the weapon out again.

  Meanwhile I think there had been a different reason for me to lay so much care on the weapon to be in working order since I had seen one of these creatures four days ago.

  I can’t even tell what it really had been. My first thought was that I had seen a Shoggothen, even if he didn’t resemble these colloidal beings, which H.P. Lovecraft had been writing about in his stories. But this had been the first definition that had come to my mind. That’s why I called them so. I have to admit that Sarah had been right – one feels safer if one has a weapon, just in times like these.

  I take the gun, prove if its cartridge chambers are cocked and put some further ammunition into the pocket of my old cord jacket, which hangs at a clothes hook over the bureau. Then I go into bathroom, light two candles and do what I have to do.

  I wash myself with cold water out of an old china bowl I had placed in the lavatory. By doing so I try to ignore the old, desperate face I see in the mirror.

  Packed with my jacket and the gun I go into the kitchen and scrutinize the larder. In the end I pocket some money and leave through the back for the garden that once had been arranged by Sarah. Nowadays there grow only weed and prickly bushes.

  I pause on the small wooden porch. The gun rests in the crook of my arm, its muzzle being aimed towards the ground. It is not the first time that I went outside the house during the last days. I had been out to fetch water from the old well two times and once I had tried to get some reception via my car radio, but didn’t have any success. Each time I had been standing on the porch I had been surrounded by this unnatural silence that resembles an impenetrable wall.

  I motionless stand on the weathered and worn-out timber planks and glance over the garden. The withered leaves of some of the bushes slightly bend under a cool breeze; and through the – at some places knee-high – weed runs a sad movement, as if even the
wind was trying to flee. But all that happens in complete silence.

  The land is silent.

  A perspective silence spreads over the world like a gigantic cover. I’m nearly tempted to feel that if I only would hold my arms forward I would be able to touch this silence.

  I glance over the warped lattice fence to the large meadow, extending to the forest. In the damp morning air one is only able to recognize the black front of the wood as a grey shadow. The meadow looks stiff, like having been frozen by night. Over some small pools, which had collected in the sinks, I can to watch a white haze dancing lazily. When I had been standing here before, I had been able to hear the birds that flew above the grass clamour and watch them nose-diving to catch some prey. Or I had heard some lonely deer shouts from the woods.

  Now I hear nothing. The world beyond my little garden resembles a dark painting.

  I gaze at the needy built carport that houses my old Pick-up. Its panes are steamed up and on the hood I can recognize a flimsy film of hoar frost. Throwing a last glance on the world that has fallen silent I tramp through the high grass over to my old car. The whetting of the stems against my boots resembles me like the hissing of countless snakes. My feet leave a wet trace onto the grass. I automatically browse to all sides, holding the muzzle of my gun ahead and my forefinger being set onto the trigger. It has been four days that I saw the Shoggothen.

  I had been on my way to the well in a far off corner of the garden. To protect me against the morning cold I wore a thick bath robe. I must have looked a rather absurd sight on any random observer. In each of my hands I held an old tin bucket, which had been standing in a corner of the shed for years and now served me well, because nobody could tell how long it would take until we would be provided running water again. Up till then I would have to fetch the water from the old well with an effort.

  Even if these new times seem to be bad, I wasn’t going to neglect my duties against Sarah. And these are like that: to wash her in the mornings and evenings and to make her some tea together with the meals. I want her to keep at least this last little thing that reminds her of better times. That day I, feeling the cold grass stems against my shins, had covered just half of the distance between the porch and the well, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement.