Hunted by Darkness

Through the Glass

Sarah

It was difficult to decide what to do now that the danger had passed. On the one hand, Sarah wanted to go home. The problem was, she didn’t know where that was. Under the duvet, probably, but not close to her parents. The more she thought about the bodies of Alex and Mary on the floor and the monstrous things that chased them here, the more uncomfortable the idea of seeing her parents became. The thought of looking into her mother’s blankly smiling face made her stomach tighten into a knot. A shudder ran along her spine. She crossed her arms, wishing she had her jacket back.

Gabriel stirred next to her, startling her. His voice was just a grunt, at first, but it was more purposeful than his previous ones. He hadn’t made a sound since she had lifted him onto the bench, but now he seemed to be straightening his head. He lifted a hand as if it weighed a hundred tons and tried to rub his face, but the effort seemed too much. His fingers barely brushed his forehead before his arm fell back onto his lap.

‘What happened?’

His voice was hoarse. Even speaking seemed hard. Sarah gave him a brief summary, even mentioning the energy she had felt, although she made it sound like it came from somewhere else. It felt wrong to tell this stranger she had been able to manipulate some odd force of nature. It sounded crazy to her as well. The more she thought about it, the crazier it felt.

‘How did the thing got you?’

‘I don’t know. I felt something wrap around my leg and then my left arm and I fell flat on the floor. I was trying to keep up with you but, damn, you’re fast!’

‘Am I?’

She had felt she was running as fast as she could, but she didn’t remember going faster than any other average girl. She was no athlete, that was for sure.

‘Well, yes. I’ve never considered myself slow, and I could barely catch you.’

‘What happened after you fell?’ she asked, wanting to change the subject.

‘I tried to get up but more tentacles wrapped around my wrists and legs, my whole body felt numb. This blackness surrounded me. At first, I thought I was passing out, but even after a while I was still conscious, I just couldn’t see anything. I still felt it move, so I knew we were still advancing. It was like travelling in the belly of a big monster. Eventually, I felt it stop. Then there was some movement again, but slow. And then it wrapped around me so tight that I passed out.’

Sarah watched him. His eyes were lost in a distant point across the path. The dark lines left by the touch of the thing drew tribal signs on his bare arms as his hands trembled. She checked the mark on her arm and gasped. All there was left now was a faint red mark. Gabriel’s, however, looked as fresh as they had been when the thing left them. It occurred to her that he would have been in contact with the tentacles for longer, but it still seemed strange to her that her marks would be gone already. She hadn’t even thought they would disappear.

A cold breeze raised the hairs at the back of her neck. She instinctively rubbed her arms. Neither one of them had come out with their jackets.

‘Should we go back to the pub?’   

Gabriel shrugged, still not looking at her.

‘Our jackets are there. And our phones.’

He nodded this time and got to his feet with more determination than strength. He wobbled for a few steps, although he soon found his feet and was able to start walking normally. Sarah watched him with concern as they found the general direction from which they had come. The pub was somewhere South, but she hoped he knew where they were going better than she did. She suspected it was the case. Actually, she suspected he knew better in more than one way.

The questions sparked by his confrontation with Alex were back at the forefront of her mind now that there was no danger, but she wasn’t sure how to ask them. A knot of air and fear formed in her throat as she considered voicing them, a cork trapping her words in her chest. She was afraid he wouldn’t answer, or he would find her impertinent of paranoid, or that he would lie.

Most of all, she was afraid he would tell the truth.

The pub was still full of people. Sarah wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they left. They did check the back first, but both Alex and Mary were gone. It was nice to walk into the warmth of the place, the noisy bustle of people, drinks and music. She hadn’t noticed how empty she had become while all of the craziness happened. Even the smell of beer felt comforting.

Rose and Vivian were still inside, but the boys and Natalie had left.

‘What happened to you two? We thought you had gone home…’ Vivian asked. She looked up and down at Sarah. 

‘Who was that guy?’ Rose asked, ‘your boyfriend?’

‘Mmm? No… well, he says we were dating before…’ she pointed at her head ‘you know. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say he falls neatly into the ex category now.’ She was happy to find her jacket where she had left it as she sat on the chair, ‘Gabriel helped get rid of him, but I was too shaken to come back inside, so he walked around with me for a while.’

Sarah had to come up with something, and she had made that up as a plausible explanation as they walked back, hoping that they hadn’t been away for so long that it would sound as an excuse. Not that there was any chance that Rose or Vivian or anybody else, would suspect what had happened.

Gabriel dropped into the chair next to her, and she could swear the thing creaked under his weight. He was visibly tired, which was probably the reason why Vivian seemed to watch him so intently.

They talked for a few minutes. The rest of the group had moved on to a club, but they had stayed. Rose didn’t feel comfortable leaving their things behind, and they had no way to let them know they were leaving.

‘We told the guys we’d meet them there once you were back,’ Vivian told Gabriel in particular.

‘I hate clubs,’ his voice was dim but cold.

Vivian leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

‘I’m not a fan either,’ Rose added, ‘but I’ll walk there with you on my way home,’ she rested a hand on Vivian’s arm, who smiled softly, ‘maybe Sarah wants to go too.’

Sarah felt all eyes on her and, although Vivian had no interest in her presence if it wasn’t bringing Gabriel, she still felt pressured to go.

‘I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night, I’d rather go home.’

*********

Gabriel

The idea of going home only seemed to suit Sarah when Vivian wanted to go to the club. Once they were on their way, not so much. He could feel her shaking next to him, even though they weren’t close enough to touch. It became more and more apparent that she didn’t remember anything at all, not even her parents. Gabriel swallowed with difficulty. He should not have done what Elsebeth had asked him but, of course, he didn’t know back then, did he? The power of hindsight…

She didn’t say a word in the cab. Her face was turned away from him, and he didn’t know what to say, not with the driver there. The man must have felt the tension because he didn’t even try to have a conversation, or maybe he was too tired.

It took only a few minutes to arrive at her street. He hadn’t been here for so long, far from the smell of car fumes from the city centre and the noise from the high-street, it was a quiet residential area. The air bit at their skin like cold snakes, and he shivered. He was exhausted, and his legs were far from stable under him, but he didn’t want Sarah to think he was struggling, so he bit down and got on with it. He’d be home soon, and he would be able to collapse in his bed. Or the floor, there was no telling.

‘Well, thanks for… well, for accompanying me home,’ she said at the end of her driveway.

‘Thanks for saving my life,’ he answered with a half-smile.

They stood on the footpath, in the semi-darkness afforded by not being under a lamppost, and he wondered why she was still standing here. His heart beat faster just long enough for him to get hope, but then she looked nervously towards the house. He smiled to himself, feeling blood flooding his cheeks with embarrassment. She wasn’t lingering for him; she just didn’t want to go inside.

‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ he smiled.

She nodded, and he thought she smiled back but couldn’t be sure. He pushed his shaking hands deep into his jeans’ pockets and followed her. The single key made a grating noise as it came into the lock, but it opened before Sarah had a chance to turn it or say anything else. They froze as a shadow stepped out of the darkness of the hall. Gabriel’s heart pounded in a very different way than it had a few seconds before, knocking in panic at the back of his mouth. It didn’t stop when the shadow turned out to be Sarah’s mother.

‘God, you scared me!’

‘Did I?’ she crossed her arms. ‘Alex called saying you had ran away with some boy. I suppose this is him…’ she looked at him as if he was a stray dog that had wandered into her garden. ‘Who are you?’ she turned towards him.

‘It’s Gabriel,’ he replied. He was having a deja vu. Alex hadn’t recognized him, and now Mrs Morgan didn’t seem to know him either.

‘Gabriel who?’

‘Donovan, Mrs Morgan.’

Neither Mr Morgan nor she had ever liked him, and he considered she was pretending not to know him to keep Sarah away from him, but there had been no trace of recognition in the woman’s expression, no gasp, no widening of the eyes, not even a flinch.

‘Well, you better be going home, Mr Donovan,’ she gave him a side look before pressing her hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

‘Night…’ she turned her head towards him as she walked inside the house, the light of the far lamppost reflecting in her clear blue eyes, a trace of despair behind the half-smile, and then the door closed on his face.

He stood there for a few seconds before going back to the cab, his mind trying to find a way, an explanation, but finding only walls. As many reasons or excuses as he could find for Mrs Morgan’s behaviour, he kept going back to Alex and Mary and the shadows that had almost killed him. Sarah’s look as she had walked away didn’t reassure him either.

He made a decision as he opened the passenger door of the blue Mercedes.

‘Drop me at the end of the street and wait for me there,’ he said, ‘we’ll be right back.’

The driver gave him a side look with a quick frown but must have internally shrugged and did as he was asked. He ran around the corner and past the wooden fence, turning into the dark alley, the ground muddy and covered in rubbish he was glad he couldn’t see. He counted houses and stumbled against wheeled bins as he advanced. Sarah’s neighbours had their bin outside, which suited him fine. It was a good step ladder to jump over the fence.

This was the way he had used to see Sarah when she had been grounded or when he didn’t want to have the empty small talk with her parents.

The next step was climbing the apple tree and then climbing onto the short roof over the back door, right under Sarah’s bedroom window. Pulling himself onto the roof was not as easy as it had been in the past. His body groaned with pain as he tried to pull his weight up, and he almost fell to the stone slabbed ground. He managed, though. Holding with one hand onto the black pipes, he knocked at Sarah’s window. It was dark inside, all he could see was the back of her curtains, the blinds weren’t closed. He knocked softly again, but nothing moved. Was she not there? Maybe her parents were having one of those chats; Mrs Morgan had looked annoyed.

Something jumped at the window, making him lose his grip on the pipe. With a grunt of pain, he managed to keep his balance and grabbed the pipe once more. He smiled at the big bear of a dog which had both his paws resting on the glass.

‘Where is Sarah?’ he asked, thinking himself stupid, surely he couldn’t hear him through the double glass, ‘where is she?’

Samson looked back, taking a couple of steps towards the door and then came back to the window, poking his head under the curtain. Gabriel frowned.

‘Where is Sarah, boy?’

The dog did the same thing again.

‘Are you telling me she is not in the room, is that it?’ Samson repeated the same movement. ‘Go and get Sarah, go.’ Gabriel noticed in his throat a vibration that he had felt for the first time, earlier that night. He had spoken those words and Alex had obeyed, even if it was visible he didn’t want to. His face had contorted in a grimace as he had tried to do what he had set out to do, yet was unable to after Gabriel’s words. And there had been something strange in his voice, like a whisper, just like now.

Samson seemed to understand and didn’t waste any time. He darted away. Gabriel stood outside, the cold night air hitting the back of his neck, an ominous discomfort settled in him. He needed to get away as soon as possible. They needed to get out of here.

Nothing happened. No movement behind the curtain, no light in the room or in the corridor. He started feeling stupid for thinking the dog had understood what he wanted. His hands were shaking with cold and exhaustion. The idea of leaving did go through his mind several times, but the look of sadness on her face a few minutes earlier kept him here, trying to think of any other options.

Maybe he should knock at the door and burst into the house.

Before that became a necessity, the curtain split open, and Sarah’s face appeared through the glass.

‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, opening the window, her eyebrows furrowed, glancing over her shoulder before looking at him.

‘You have to come with me.’

He knew as he said the words, they sounded ridiculous. He knew, as he heard himself say it, that it would be very unlikely Sarah accepted to leave her house, yet he had no doubt that it needed to happen.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Look, I knew Alex, ok? And Mary, and they knew me, or they should have, but neither of them recognized me, and then those… shadows or whatever, appeared out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, them, didn’t they?’

‘So?’ Sarah looked at him, her arms crossed over her chest.

‘Your mother didn’t recognize me.’

His eyes tried to pierce into her skull as if trying to pass on all the untold information she probably wanted to know while at the same time trying to read her reaction. She didn’t say anything for a while, staring back at him, matching his intensity.

‘I thought you had no memory.’

‘I’ve lost some of my memories.’

That wasn’t completely false, was it?

‘You knew me.’

He nodded.

‘And my parents knew you.’

‘Enough to recognize me when I was in front of them at least.’

She watched him in the dark, her expression unreadable. He didn’t want to cause her any pain, but the longer they were here, the more danger they were in.

‘I can’t leave. This is my home, my family.’

He pulled himself closer to the frame.

‘Tell me this, are you constantly looking over your shoulder because you’re scared they’ll see me or because you are just scared?’

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. He couldn’t see it in the darkness, but he was sure she was crying.

‘Tell me you feel safe here and I’ll leave you alone.’

He couldn’t expect an immediate answer, but he hoped for one, yet she remained still. She looked back over her shoulder one more time.

‘Ok,’ she said with a shaky voice, ‘but we need to take the dog.’

‘What?’

Gabriel had hoped for a quick escape, Sarah following him down onto the alley and out into the street. That was it. His plan hadn’t accounted for a thirty-kilo dog and how to break him out of a house. He looked around, remembering the short shed where Sarah’s father kept his bike. It was still there, next to the back doors. If he managed to get Samson out into the roof, it wasn’t a big jump onto the shed and then onto the floor. It forced them to leave out of Sarah’s own backyard, with a risk of being seen if there was somebody in the kitchen, but no light was visible through the downstairs windows.

‘Fine,’ he grunted, ‘come on Samson.’

But Samson, unlike his namesake, lacked the courage and confidence on its own invincibility. Gabriel pulled from his collar while Sarah whispered to him in a more and more urging tone to step out of the window. The dog whimpered and pushed back with powerful hind legs. Gabriel had to hang almost all his weight on him to get his front paws onto the window frame.

‘Are you sure you want to take him with you?’ he grunted.

‘If you are right, I’m not leaving him with them to be, I don’t know, devoured or frozen or something,’ she said pushing.

Eventually, between the both of them, they managed to get Samson onto the back door overhang, Gabriel still holding his collar and stopping him from slipping off the edge. His paws had no grip on that inclination, and the roof tiles were slippery with moss and algae. Samson, however, was a smart one and, seeing as he couldn’t hold himself up on there, found the easiest way out and did exactly what Gabriel had planned, he jumped unto the shed. They hadn’t accounted for the mighty thump a dog his size would do onto the not so sturdy shed though.

‘Come on, let’s go!’ he reached out for Sarah’s hand, who took it without hesitation. The shed wouldn’t take the weight of a human body falling onto it so he let her body slide down over the edge of the overhang, slowly sliding his own hand down the pipe to stop himself from falling.

‘Ready?’ He asked when her hand was level with the edge, her other hand gripping at the gutter and holding up part of her weight.

‘Ready.’

He let go and waited for her feet to hit the floor, the thud much more subtle than the dog’s. He followed the same route.

The gate onto the alley was open, but as soon as they closed it, lights turned on into the house. Gabriel grabbed Sarah’s hand they ran out the way he had come. He felt some resistance at first but only for a split second.

‘Come on, Samson,’ she heard her say behind him. He could hear the dog’s panting and the soft thud of his paws on the dirt path.

‘Sarah!’ voices came from the back of the house.

She would have slowed down if he wasn’t pulling her by the hand. Her hand was cold and damp into his. He didn’t know how he would react to having to make that decision. Would he even be able to? Was it even right?

The voices kept coming, but they didn’t stop. They were out into the street within a minute and turned left. He was afraid the taxi might have left; the whole thing had taken way longer than he had calculated, but the light on top of the car was visible at the end of the short stretch of street. Steps were now obvious, thumping behind them, but they didn’t look back. Samson was slightly ahead now, slowing down and looking back now and then to make sure they were still there. He was surprisingly fast for such a big dog.

Gabriel opened the back of the taxi for Sarah and Samson and shut the door behind them before the diver could complain about the dog. He was still ranting when he jumped onto the passenger side.

‘I’ll pay you extra plus any damage the dog might do, which I’m sure he won’t. Now, drive.’

The driver grunted, but put the car in gear and drove on as Gabriel watched two shadows appear around the corner. They follow for fifty meters before giving up and watching them disappear at the next junction. As the shadows remained in human shape, Gabriel wondered again if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake.