Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (22 page)

Finally, Suzanne was left anticipating Thanksgiving and Christmas.
She knows it is all she will see of her children during the year.
Last year, though, she hadn’t seen them at all.
Busy
,
they’d said. Everyone is busy.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Angela has to watch her friend
convince herself yet again that her children will come to collect her
for Christmas. Suzanne visits shortly after the nurse leaves,
carrying with her a bible and a few cranberry muffins, and already
Angela has the coffee ready. Suzanne thanks her and sits.

“I’m so looking forward to Christmas,” she says
almost as soon as she sits down, and bitterly Angela wishes the old
dummy wouldn’t have brought it up.

Suzanne wants comfort, reassurance, and that is something Angela
isn’t in the habit of doling out. Contrary to the beliefs of
others, Angela is a realist and knows better than to give false hope.
Better to face truth now than to suffer the bitter agonies of
disappointment later. The sooner Suzanne accepts her family has
abandoned her, the better off she’ll be.

“I’m still thinking of what to buy you,” Angela
tries smiling, “but I thought maybe the next time the bus
drives us into town we can just sneak off and run away together.”

Suzanne laughs. “No, I mean I can’t wait to see my
family! I don’t have a lot of money for presents to give them,
but I’ve gathered up all the funnies from the papers in a cute
little box for the kids to read. That’ll be a nice gift, don’t
you think?”

Angela’s smile vanishes. She can’t help but to blurt out,
“Suzy, they’re not coming.”

That’s all it takes to make the darkness appear, and Angela
regrets her words immediately. She’s not even sure what is in
the darkness, but she’s seen it around some of the other guests
just days before they’re rushed off to the hospital or declared
dead. A heavy black fog that settles in around their feet, murky,
like tar, and there’s movement in it; a serpent that slithers
around their ankles, biting them. The darkness has found Suzanne.

And I brought it to her
, Angela thinks, cursing herself.

“D-don’t be so negative, Angie,” Suzanne says,
though her hands shake, and the smile on her mouth looks as if it
might shatter at any second. “They’ll come for me. I know
they will. They promised. It’s just been hard on them, is all.
They’re very busy people. Charles has his own firm now, you
know, and he’s got to keep working to provide for his family.
He’s doing so good, but I know he’ll take time to come
get me. Not like last year … ”

The pool of black filth lips up at her feet and already the venom is
sunk in deep. Angela knows, in a few short days, Suzanne will die.
She doesn’t even have the strength to will this awful thing
away, just barely enough to keep it from spreading and getting her
too. Angela has to sit there and smile and pat her friend on the hand
and whisper the only words of assurance she has.

“The birds haven’t left the garden yet,” Angela
says.

Suzanne doesn’t know why, but it gives her some relief, even
though she’s never understood that phrase. She’ll die
before she understands. Everyone will.

Suzanne accompanies Angela to dinner that night, and the staff of
Brandon Lodge dresses up in colorful costumes to regale their guests
with cheery Christmas songs. Angela notices one song is missing from
last year’s repertoire of carols. It’s “I’ll
be Home for Christmas,” and she knows exactly why. It’s a
song she doubts will ever be sung in these halls again.

Last year, the darkness came to Brandon Lodge, and that song brought
it in as thick and as heavy as the meat and potato soup going cold in
her plastic bowl. Rolling in like a fog, it passed beneath them all
and circled around the stage, unknown to everyone but Angela who had
the sense of mind to lift her feet off the ground. She managed to
convince Suzanne to do the same, joking they should put their feet up
and relax. With childish glee, Suzanne and some of the other guests
followed suit, and the staff paid it no mind. It was Christmas, after
all.

“
I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams …
”

The following week, there was a rash of suicides at Brandon Lodge,
the first that had ever occurred. Some hung themselves in their
bathrooms, while others kept all of their pills and took them in a
single instance. Others, more violently, threw themselves from their
windows. Now the windows are locked and the rooms are checked for
ropes and ties and sharp objects. Angela has noticed the only guests
at Brandon Lodge who remained alive after that night were those who
had either not been present in the room when the darkness had rolled
in, or those who’d put their feet on the tables and avoided the
poison from the creatures that lurked within.

A suicide note left by one of the guests had contained the lyrics
from that fateful song, and Angela knows the loneliness felt within
all of their hearts had caused that horror to manifest. It had clung
to these walls, feeding off the bad energy like a tumorous disease.
It would never go. Here it would feast forever, and it would claim
all their lives. Merely because the guests are watched for signs of
suicidal behavior does not mean the darkness cannot claim their
lives, for all it has to do is remove their will to live.

It was only thanks to Angela that it didn’t kill them all now.
She’d stopped sleeping at night, and would stay awake
whispering words of life and light into the halls, like she’d
done for her ungrateful son all those years ago. The staff and the
residents here were her new children, her reason for being. It was
her love for them that kept the horror from spreading. It could not
abide love.

Angela feels herself wavering as she watches Suzanne’s hands
shake whenever she holds the glass to her lips. The despair is
getting to Angela, watching the darkness spread over Suzanne’s
body, the little serpent nipping at whatever bits of exposed flesh
they can reach. She can hear the voices within the blackness
laughing, taunting her.

“
Thanks for the meal,”
come the many hissing
voices into her mind, “
And here we thought you didn’t
like us.”

Angela wants to scream. She clenches her napkin so tightly that her
nails cut into her palm and blood drips scarlet onto the clean, white
cloth. No one notices, everyone’s singing “White
Christmas
.
” Suzanne urges Angela to sing along, and so
Angela sings. She sings and she smiles, though inside she is
breaking.

They wish each other goodnight and retreat to their rooms.

“It’s a home; you’re getting rid of me,”
Angela had said to her son when he’d first told her of Brandon
Lodge.

“Mom, you can’t take care of yourself anymore,”
he’d been so utterly self-righteous and presuming—her
little savior.

She called him out for all his shit. “Bull! My house stands to
make you a lot of money if you can sell it. Just gotta get rid of the
person who lives in it first.”

“We’ll use the money to pay your expenses at the lodge.”

“Two birds with one stone, eh? Get rid of me, and suffer no
expense for yourself? You’re a real piece of work, kid.”

“We’ll come to visit, Mom.”

She laughed. “Don’t make me any promises. I’d fight
you, but I know you’ll win. Everyone around here thinks I’m
either crazy or senile. Nobody takes you seriously when you’re
young, and nobody takes you seriously when you’re old. I hope
you enjoy the time you have, son, because when you get to be my age,
your kids are going to turn around and stab you in the back just like
you’re doing to me.”

Alone in the dark, Angela breaks down. She shatters her favorite
tea set against the carpet and knows it doesn’t make enough
noise to alert the staff. For that, she’s glad. She wants to
throw a temper-tantrum, to destroy things, the way everything in her
life has been destroyed. Everyone has either left, betrayed her, or
forgotten—anyone who’s ever cared for her existence is
either dead or dying. She’s alone in this world and alone she
fights the darkness threatening to consume them all.

That’s when it begins to creep in, as love turns to bitterness
and hate. Her despair draws it to her like a moth to a flame. It
cannot resist the sweet, sweet agony. Her tears are the sustenance of
the thick, black fog, her pain its ambrosia. She sees it sweeping in
under the door and allows herself a bitter laugh. The staff thought
they’d taken all her cigarettes away, but before they stole the
pack from her hands, she’d hidden one in her purse. It’s
been waiting there for her; for a night when she’d need it
most. Tonight is that night, and she’s going to take one final
drag before surrendering to the black beyond.

“
It’s time, Angela. You’ve resisted us far too
long, but now you too must know our embrace.”
The words of
the blackness are like a melody and in the room it begins to grow.

“You must allow me then,” Angela says, smiling wryly as
she lights her cigarette, “one last dance.”

She blows a puff of smoke at the abominations emerging from the
walls, shrieking and clawing their way into her room. Their
wraith-like appearances, the faces of all those they have devoured in
the past, the decaying flesh that hangs from their bones is not their
own, but of those that she once knew, and many strangers before them.
The darkness has existed for centuries, feeding off of the forgotten
and the weary.

It’s not enough to kill her, she knows. The darkness is stretched far too thin,
attempting to suck the lives from all those around
her. It’s underestimated her. She’s been dancing to this
song all her life. The steps have been memorized. It’ll need
everything it’s got if it hopes to destroy her. She is no easy
victim, and far from their usual willing prey.

“Not enough, shitheads,” she says, taking another drag.

Angela closes her eyes and, with her mind, calls to the remaining
parts of the dark. As if on command, it leaves Suzanne’s
bedside, the sobs of a broken-hearted young woman cleaning the
restrooms downstairs, and an old man who’s just heard the
reason his family won’t be coming for Christmas is that his
youngest son has died. The darkness comes from all corners of Brandon
Lodge to collect itself in Angela’s room. All around, the
residents and staff are startled to see the lights flickering, and
feel a shaking in the earth. Something monumental is happening,
apocalyptic. Angela is drawing all the darkness to herself.

It’s going to kill her tonight, she’s decided, and she’s
taking it into the oblivion with her.

“More,” she says, blowing another puff of smoke, “Come
on, give me more you filthy cocksuckers! Are you so ancient that you
can’t even destroy me? A feeble old-woman? Maybe you should
have one of the orderlies assist you up the stairs, open a few of the
doors for you! What’s the matter? You taking a rest? You’re
going to have to do better than that. I’ve sent thousands of
your brothers and sisters howling back to the abominable pit that
spawned you, so what makes you think it’ll take any less than
all of your power to best me?”

“
We will silence you, old bitch!”
they scream in
return, howling in anger as the walls spew more of the wraith-like
beings; they are sticky and covered in the afterbirth of another
world.

The shrieks continue to grow louder and the room shakes all the more,
fury caused by the vengeful dark. Too long has it waited for this
moment; too long has it been forced into taking small morsels instead
of satiating its ravenous hunger, near-starved because of one woman,
who even now clings to life and taunts them. She laughs as the
picture frames fall from the walls, and monstrous hands reach down
from the ceiling as if the walls themselves are liquid. It is the end
at last, and what a glorious end it will be.

With a mighty howl she takes the darkness into her and too late does
the entity realize the trap it has fallen into. She crushes her
cigarette and dies, trapping the force within her, choking it. It is
done.

The staff of the Brandon Lodge finds her lying peacefully in her bed
the following morning, a smile writ upon her lips. In her hands
there’s a crumpled note. Puzzled at its message, the unwitting
staff throws it away. They do not realize the treasure they hold.

It reads: “The birds have left the garden, but do not worry.
They’ve merely gone to escape the cold. When Spring returns, so
too shall they.”

Suzanne dies within the week, but not in sadness; in joy. Her eyes
close serenely, and somehow she knows it is because of Angela, who
waits on the other side to explain it all. It’ll be a fine
story to tell, a secret for them both to share.

The end of the Earth came not with a whimper or bang. No herald
trumpets of angels filled the air in glorious announcement. Neither
did the dead rise and walk to consume our flesh. The end crept like a
chilled blanket across our skies, dimming the light of the sun till
the Earth turned dark. But that wasn’t the worst of it. With
the unending eclipse came something from beyond the outer rim of our
solar system; came as the ever hungry worms of a cemetery devour the
newly buried dead.

For all this, I had a front row seat.

My clock says it’s one in the afternoon, but looking out my
window I see only deep shadow beyond the wall of floodlights that
surround my house.
Their
children wander in that shadow,
surrounded by an inky darkness they seem to emanate on their own,
much like our earthly squid. In what number, I don’t know.
Thousands. Perhaps millions, by now. Eating whatever lives and
breathes while their sky-living elders scrape and devour the surface
of the Earth.

Through my skylight, the sun hangs, obscured in black with only the
edge of its corona shining like two facing, slender shining coins.
The sky is clear and stars hang precariously, threatened by the
howling wind. Beyond the mountains, across the valley, a deeper
shadow lines the horizon. It grows and spreads by the hour. It’s
the unearthly cloud that contains
them,
deep in its ever
expanding belly, their bodies hidden from sight. Won’t be long
now. The window shakes in its thick frame and I feel the earth
shudder beneath my feet.