Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Lucia.
Paul.
Blood.
Syrsee.
What the fuck happened back there? I drank her. She’s the Black witch I’ve been hunting. She’s been feeding me. I’m dying.
That’s what Paul said. He said I’m dying.
And maybe I am. The heat is not normal. But I’ve been hot like this for so long now, I’ve just gotten used to it.
The highway is covered in snow and even though it’s barely noon, the clouds above me are thick, and gray, making the early afternoon feel more like evening with a threat of a coming storm.
What are you doing, Ryet? What are you doing?
I don’t know. That’s why I have to ask. I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t want to go, I don’t know what to do, and I’m tired. I’m just tired of all of it.
I lift my head up off the steering wheel and look over to my right at a very dramatic sky. The clouds are rolling now, almost churning. Like special effects in a horror movie.
And why not? My life might as well be a horror movie. Death. Blood. Remote location. The monster. Who will make it out? I guess that’s the only unknown variable.
I don’t think it’s gonna be me. It’s gonna be Paul. It’s always Paul. He makes it when no one else does. I’m gonna die, and Syrsee’s gonna die, and—
Movement just outside my field of vision disrupts my thoughts, making me turn my head. An RV is pulling into the scenic overlook behind me. I sit back in my seat and watch from the rearview mirror as a family spills out: a couple of kids who probably aren’t even school age, their puffy jackets making them look much bigger than they are as they point their phones to take pictures; then a woman holding a baby so bundled up, I can’t even see it; finally a man, who must be the father, wearing a ski jacket and a matching knit beanie.
They go over to the iron fence that separates the parking area from a long drop over a steep cliff and both of the little kids put their feet on the bottom rail, trying to look down. Even through my closed windows I can hear their excitement and before I know what’s happening, I’m smiling.
I had kids once. I know that much.
Jane and little baby Susan. But there were more kids. Two more. In fact… I turn in my seat so I can see them better.
Yes. That was me. That man was me once upon a time. Before the Darkness took over my life. Before Paul made me his. I was that man. I wasn’t planning on buying an RV—we called them trailers back then—but we were gonna buy a boat. I feel these things in my heart.
We weren’t rich, or even middle-class, but we weren’t poor anymore. I was…
A wave of images floats through my brain. A garage, the smell of oil and transmission fluid, and old cars. Those beautiful old cars that came in all kinds of happy colors, like Easter eggs.
Tools replace the garage and I see my own hands picking them up.
I was a mechanic. And I had a wife and three kids.
Then I see stained glass and in that same moment I hear singing.
But it’s not in my head, it’s the kids outside my truck. They are singing a church song. Something all little kids sing.
This little light of mine...
Then another voice joins in, a boy. He’s laughing as he sings. I squint as I watch the kids outside, desperate to see him. But he’s not here. I don’t know his name, or how old he was, or what his face looks like.
Mine? Does he look like me? Or did he look like his mother?
I’m gonna let it shine…
Jane. Paul called her Jane.
Then another voice is added to the chorus. A sweet voice in a higher octave. A girl.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…
I picture them—no, I picture us—standing outside there on the side of the road, looking out at the afternoon sky and the snow-covered mountains, enjoying the day, and the drive, and each other. And I am suddenly angry.
Why?
Why did God take them away from me?
I’m not stupid. It was Paul. I know he killed them. I think I knew it back then too. I don’t remember much of them at all, but I remember Paul. Not beautiful Paul—which isn’t an illusion. It’s just how he looked before the Darkness got him—but monster Paul. The winged thing. The ugly face. The horror of him.
He was stalking me for weeks. Years. No. A lifetime.
My whole lifetime.
He was always there. That’s why I went to church. That’s why I believed. That’s why I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Because I knew the evil was real and if the evil is real, then so is the good. They can’t exist without one another. That’s just not how it works.