Underworld (Dark Passage) (7 page)

I am standing across the street from June watching
her fold blankets and I notice two men looking at me
intently. I figure they must be looking at someone
behind me and pay no attention but then they start to
cross the street. I back up until I am standing in a
flower bed in front of the Harbor Bank.

They didn’t speak, didn’t move but watched me with
a piercing gaze. As I met their gaze something
changed about them. Their eyes burned with fire and
it was then that I noticed membranous wings just
visible behind their backs. In their eyes I could
something moving. There is a creature made of
smoke with overlong arms, stringy hair and sinister
eyes that glowed like lighting. I could smell the
stench of death coming from the men and a gravelly
sounding laugh came from one of them.

They began to walk toward me and I back quickly
over the flower bed and into the parking lot of the
bank. I can see one of them reaching inside his
jacket. His produces a knife with a long, twisted
blade. There is a humming sound and I glance up to
see several creatures hovering about 30 feet in the air.

My heart is racing and I hope to hell that I wake up
soon. Glancing around I look for a way back into the
woods but all I see is the festival booths. One of the
creatures in the sky comes closer and a hiss escapes
its mouth. I stumble backwards and nearly fall but
catch myself.

It is then that I notice June walking across the street
towards me. She has a shawl around her shoulders
and is holding it closed with her hands as I had seen
her do a million times before. She smiles and her
eyes twinkle as she walks. She stops at the flower
bed and her hands fall to her sides as she speaks.

“You have i
t within you Ivy. You can call the powers
of the light into the darkness”. My fear must have
been apparent for she motioned for me to open my
backpack. It takes a moment to register what she
means but then I take the backpack off. I fish around
inside it until I feel the sheath of my knife and take it
out of the backpack.

With an eerie laugh one of the men in front takes a
step towards me. Then the membranes of its wings
began to quiver and it lifts a few feet off the ground
before stepping back down to the pavement. Its face
is pulled back into a calculated grin and it mocks me
as it takes inches forward.

I began to breathe deeply and I feel surprisingly calm
as time seems to play in slow motion. I am now in a
trancelike state and murmur a few words under my
breath- as though accepting what is to come. I drag
my eyes to the sky to see a creature hovering not far
above me. The veins on the creature’s neck are
throbbing and a foul odor carries on the breeze. The
nightmare has become reality and I am ready to take
it on full force.

One of the men darts forward like a predator about to
kill his prey. I am ready for it and dodge out of the
way. The blade that the creature holds whistles past
my face by mere inches. The bulk of the man shifted
him off balance and he falls hard on the blacktop.

The lunge I make surprises not only me but the man
who is picking himself up off the ground. With a
brutal thrust of my knife I tear into the abdomen and
pull downward. I turn on a dime and stand facing the
second man. The smell emitted from the wound is so
strong I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep
from getting sick. The warm rush of blood in my
mouth spurs me on to initiate another attack. Again
and again I attack. Stabbing and ripping with my
knife as though I have done this all my life. I can’t
believe the violent nature that has emerged from me.
I am a mad woman slashing and ripping. They are
making deep guttural laughing noises in mock of me
as they lay dying.

The creature in the air is grinning as it flies high up
then turns and comes at me with mind blowing speed.
My knife makes contact with a leg but the force of the
attack throws me to the ground. I struggle to rise but
the pain in my back will not allow me to get up. The
pain is so intense I feel I am going to black out.

The demon lands on the blacktop and takes slow,
deliberate steps toward me. He is savoring my
dilemma and rage is on his face. My eyes are closed
for I do not wish to meet the gaze. The eyes of a
demon reflect the depths of hell in them and I have no
interest in seeing the terror of the place.

I can hear heavy footsteps on blacktop as the creature
moves toward me. I anticipate the death blow that
will come any moment and my only hope is that it
will be over quickly. My back is broken. I can feel
nothing from the waist down and all I can do is lay
there and wait for the inevitable.

I open my eyes to say goodbye to June and I can see
several more have landed in the parking lot. My heart
sinks. I plan on slitting my throat with my knife but
want to see June one last time. She is standing on the
edge of the parking lot holding her shawl about her
and smiling at me. There is fierce determination in
her eyes and she is talking.

“Ivy. Listen to June. Remove your locket and y
ou
will see a tiny line in the middle. Place your
thumbnail in the crack and open it. Once it is open
you must shine the light on the demons”.

I am confused as to what she is talking about. Is she
referring to the necklace that Jen had given me? It’s
simply a sphere shaped charm attached to a chain. It
has no opening on it- I have looked at it many times
before.

I remove the chain from my neck and I hold the
locket up to my face. Sure enough, I can see a line,
the size of a piece of fine hair. I insert my fingernail
in the line and to my surprise it opens.

Inside is a grey stone that is swirling with colors. It
looks like one of those mood rings my sister used to
have years ago. Looking into the misty depth of the
locket I am shocked to see a human figure.
“Do it now Ivy!”

The urgency in June’s voice made me look away
from the locket for a moment. When I look back at it
I can see a legion of people inside. They are the most
beautiful beings I have ever seen. The people began
to emit light that was so strong t I can no longer see.

Sounds of growling followed by June shouting my
name spurs me into action. I hold the sphere in my
hand and direct the light in the direction of the
creatures. There is instantly a light, as bright as the
sun. It floods the area with such intensity that I have
to cover my face.

From the light emerges a multitude of beings. They
are now standing in the parking lot and there are so
many that I cannot count them. The light grows and
we are all swallowed up in it.

The light contains a feeling of pure love and extreme
warmth is being infused into me. I am experiencing a
lifting sensation that gives me an intense feeling of
pleasure. The pleasure comes from everywhere and
all at once. It resonates inside my entire body and I
can feel my broken bones snapping back into place.

I feel as though I am being lifted, high up, and I am
weightless. It is almost a sensual feeling and I want
to stay here forever. The light is holding me as
though it is a living thing and I am being physically
embraced by the light.

“You must close the locket
Ivy. You must not choose
to go into the light now. You are needed here”, said
June.

The pleasure of the light is so intense that I don’t care
about anything else. All I have ever wanted is to be
loved and to be held just like this. I want to stay
forever and never to go back to my life. I savor the
experience for a few more moments and then let my
body fall out of the light. I know what I must do and
slowly close the locket.

The beauty of the light fades and the joy of the
moment is gone. I hold the locket in my hand and
look down at it thoughtfully. The power was in my
hands all along and yet I never knew. I can hear a
faint voice from inside the sphere. It’s a voice that I
once knew a long time ago. The voice belongs to one
called Jaden.

“It wasn’t meant for you until now. Your courage
had to be tested and your heart selfless before
opening the sphere. The light would have killed you
had you not been ready”.

I am up by 5 am, dressed and exploring the house.
My first intuition is to wait in the bedroom until
someone came for me but I was never one to miss out
on a chance to explore. I run downstairs in search of
something to eat. Someone is already in the kitchen
as the smell of bacon wafted through the halls
downstairs. I follow the scent and arrived at a large
kitchen. It looks ancient and boasts a giant cooking
stove, a butcher block island and copper pans neatly
hung from the ceiling. Despite its enormous size, the
kitchen is a warm and inviting place.

“Good
morning”. The voice belonged to a lady who
appears to bein her late 60’s. She has grey hair
pulled up into a pony tail and the most shocking blue
eyes I have ever seen. She smiles at me as she
peeked over a stack of dishes she was carrying.
When she had set the stack of plates down on the
island she came over and extended a hand.

Pam shakes
her head no. “Why don’t you sit down in
the dining room and tell me about yourself. I’m
almost finished here and the others will be around
soon enough”.

Pam walks in with a tray full of sumptuous looking
food. Despite her request for me to sit and talk to her,
I jump up and help her unload the tray. There are tiny
buttered scones; berry jam, small sausages, bacon,
fried fish and stacks of flapjacks. It looked like she
was going to feed an army and the thought of a crowd
of people made me feel sick. I wasn’t the type that
enjoyed crowds and not really one to win new friends
over in a matter of minutes like Lisa used to do.

Despite the anxiety I have of meeting a small army of
people, the steaming food smells so delectable that
my stomach is rumbling. The sound is something
awful and I am afraid she will hear it. Pam smiled but
didn’t look up from her work when she heard my
stomach. She was much too polite to acknowledge
the rude sound my stomach is making. I feel so
socially inept and clumsy around new people, even
though it seems like I have known Pam forever.

So many things are beyond my control. My dreams
of late have taken on a violent nature. I am having
visitations from the dead that I cannot stop and the
people I am staying with are not what they seem. I
suppose my social phobia is the least of my concerns.
I wish life could be less chaotic and I could live like a
normal, soon-to-be- 20 year old girl. Oh yeah, I
forgot to mention the one boyfriend who cares about
me is some guy who I made up in some crazy dream.
If it wasn’t all so pathetic it would be kind of funny.

As luck would have it, only a handful of people
showed up for breakfast. There are five people to be
exact, including me and Pam. They smile easily and
seem to be doing their best to make me feel welcome.
Although meeting new people can be stressful, this
wasn’t one of those experiences, much to my relief.
It feels as though I am in the midst of some grand
delusion. I am sitting at a huge table, with normal
looking people, somewhere in the middle of the
Underworld eating a sumptuous meal. I know
something is up, my intuition tells me that this is not
what it seems. These people are holding something
back from me and I have the feeling that something
unexpected is going to happen any second.

I resist a compulsion to run to my room, grab my
backpack and get out of this place. As I contemplate
my escape, I hear a ripping sound behind me.
Startled, I turn in my chair and there is a fat
marmalade cat. It is sharpening its claws on the
Persian rug with determination. The cat spots me
looking at him and saunters over to my chair and
begins to rub his face on my pants. Purring erupts
from his oversized body and he leaps right up on the
table where the food is located.

The marmalade cat sits on his haunches and begins to
wash his face. I watch in fascination as the animal
licks his paw and rubs it over his face. The grooming
keeps up for several minutes and no one says
anything. It’s as though it is a natural occurrence to
have a cat cleaning itself in the middle of a dining
table. When he plopped down on his back to clean
his privates I had seen enough and shooed him off the
table.

Close at my back, a man appears with a steaming pot
of coffee, and fills my cup. It’s then that I decide that
it will have to be me that opens up the line of
communication. I had come downstairs not just for
food but also in hopes of finding out some
information. I decide to start things off with a bang
and mention what happened last night.