Prologue for Darkly!

Sorry it took so long to post! Without further ado, I give you:

Darkly

Prologue

            If my timekeeping ability is to be believed, it is day 414. It’s so hard to keep track without . . .well you never realize how much you depend on something until it’s gone. My wife always used to tease me for winding this damned thing every morning. My father’s watch always kept time well, and the movement allowed for a much longer period to go between windings, but it was a sort of ritual. My morning would feel off without it. As always, I’m Marley West, and you’re my journal . . .

            “Shit, I am going crazy. Now my journal has a consciousness—and I’m talking to myself.”

            I’m keeping this record so that someday I might share my story; that is if I ever trust someone enough to let him or her read it. It’s Sarah’s birthday today, so I’m going to make an extra-long entry just for her. This one’s for you babe.

           

            Dear Sarah,

            You were in Massachusetts visiting your parents when it happened. You were supposed to be back after New Year’s. I’ve kept myself up so many nights just thinking about why I was so stubborn. We had a big fight, and you were going to spend Christmas with your folks. You were going to be back after New Year’s—it was all going to be okay after New—

            A teardrop fell to the page. I wasn’t one to cry, but given the situation I felt a fleeting tear appropriate.

            Years. I tried to get in contact with you as soon as it happened, believe me. You know that the phones went down, I mean, everything went down. For all our reliance on satellites, and they go down. It’s almost poetic, what does mankind do without what we’ve depended on so much? I’m sure the panic was just as bad on the east coast, probably worse. You have to believe that I tried everything. No one believed that it would last this long. Anyway, I tried to get a flight out the next day, but go figure that they were sold out for the next month. Everyone scrambled to get back with his or her loved ones, and it caused panic at every transit hub. Bus stations packed anxious customers into their vehicles like canned sardines. The nervous feeling had degenerated into a panic by mid-week. Temperatures had fallen so dramatically, I just hope you were indoors. I heard a rumor that Alaska hit negative ninety.

            What am I doing? You know all this; you lived through it too. Please God, I hope you somehow made it through this.

A crackling of dried brush scattered behind me. I shone my light toward it, but the beam was swallowed into inky blackness mere feet into a deceptively empty field.

I can only hope that they aren’t where you are. The people following me are enough to drive anyone mad. Hell I suppose that is their goal. They stalk their prey for months at a time, anything to gain a follower. You’d have to be pretty out of your head to take a spoon to your eye-sockets. They have been following me for a week now, just out of sight and reach. Once they stalk you for long enough, most men break down and curl up into a ball. This is when they come rushing in, and offer to take away the source of the pain. They yank the eyes out of your head, and with a hefty dose of anesthetic maybe a third of the men survive, growing their numbers. It sounds like there are at least four following me. I try to warn away anyone that I may pass, just to go back the way they came. The ones who don’t pull a machete on me usually keep walking. I put my earplugs in to stifle the horrifying sound of flesh tearing from bone. In times like these they eat whatever they find, and they find travelers more often than not. I’ve managed to kill a few, and they hardly seem to care. It’s almost as though they know that my seeing their disfigured bodies would add to, and not subtract from, the onset of my madness. The things they do to their bodies . . .

“Jesus, what the hell am I doing? This is a birthday letter.”

Sorry. I think above it all, I miss your eyes. Those teal eyes are enough to make even the most levelheaded of men falter. I know that we had our issues, but I pray that you could see through it,

I laughed at the irony of my statement.

And forgive a foolish man who misses his wife now more than ever. I am forever and completely yours.

Love,

            Marley

I leaned back against my makeshift backpack-pillow, and shut my eyes to the firelight.

“Goodnight Sarah.”

I knew I wouldn’t sleep much, if at all, but a little rest was needed. When my eyes reopened, the fire was left smoldering in ashes at my feet. I knew they wouldn’t attack me, how would that have added to my insanity?

“Oh, I guess I should get a move on, and put that out.”

“Agreeeed” A terrifyingly harsh voice spoke into my ear. I flung my crowbar at where his head should have been, but batted at air. Seconds later, a bucketful of putrid filth was sloshed onto my lingering flame. The waste smelled weeks old, as if it had been carried with them as a torturous practical joke.

“Get back here! I’ll show you what I think of the darkness!” I yanked my flashlight in a circle, yet somehow there was no one in sight. If the people of the dead were good at one thing, it was staying out of sight. This never ceased to amaze me, as they managed to do so without eyes. I wiped the fecal soup from my boots with a handful of sand, but knew full well the stink would stay with me for a few days. I’d keep walking east no matter what. I wasn’t going to let any psychopathic cannibalistic darkness worshippers change that. I penned the last line of my entry as I stood to my feet.

Today is day 415 since the sun disappeared.