Book 10 "Dark Deceptions"
Book 10, "Dark Deceptions" only made it to the first two chapters and was never finished.
Chapter One
“Dark deceptions kill the light…”
The street was cold and vacant. Benji knew this as soon as he rounded the corner of the sidewalk. Only a small aluminum soda can, rattling down the gutter from a soft cool breeze, challenged the deafening silence. The trees and shabby looking shrubbery that lined the sidewalk were bare and stripped clean of nearly every leaf. A few of them clung tenuously to their twigs, refusing to acknowledge Natures’ destruction to their lives and the coming of winter. Emptiness and a deep, cryptic fear uncurled themselves within his heart and he remained there, frozen to the sidewalk as dead and lifelessly cold as the leaves left in the gutters; crumpled and abandoned, waiting to be swept away in ashes and debris. He blinked a second, sighed loudly, his breath curling in hot misty puffs on the cool evening air, then he glanced skyward for a brief moment.
Damn, he thought, Dad’s gonna kill me. I’m late again. Shit. He shouldered his green schoolbag more tightly to his back, as if seeking some sort of warmth from the rough canvas cloth. Sniffling a brief second against the light autumn wind, he looked to the blood-red sun, a hazy sphere of blotchy clouds in the darkling twilight. He headed for home, though his feet felt like lead bricks, slowing him to a ramble over the uneven broken and pocked pavement of the cement sidewalk.
Damn Mrs. Nie, he thought as he kicked a loose stone sending it skittering across the street to shatter with a loud crack against the curb. May God take her soul and drown it, his mind screamed, I’m late simply because she “had” to talk to me after school about my homework being late again. What’s it to her? Damn whore! But, still I’d rather be anywhere than home. He reached his corner of the block, crossed the road quickly, and jumped over the short concrete step to the front door. He reached for the worn and beaten brass handle, but it was wrenched from his grasp. “Where the hell have you been?” the man in front of him glowered down to him, blocking his way into the silent comfort of home from the autumn night.
“At school.” Came the short, hoarse reply. He trembled, but stood his ground a moment, trying to look defiant, but collapsed under the others’ hard stare.
“Get the hell inside, boy. Now!” the man yelled. Benji saw the others’ icy blue eyes shine brightly in the dim light of the cobweb covered porch lamp. He dreaded what might happen next. He stepped quietly, obediently inside, brushing past the older man swiftly.
“Yes, father.” He said softly as he entered the house. It was a small one-story yellow stucco painted building with a rotting red wooden fence bordering the two street-side boundaries of the tiny backyard and another brown stained wood fence making the border between their neighbor behind them and to the left of them. The front lawn was green grass, but turning brown in large patches as fall slowly died off being choked by winters’ frozen touch. There was a large pine tree kitty-corner to the right side front street window, towering over the houses on this block like some over protective parenting grandmother, throwing its’ large branches around a thin telephone wire that disappeared from view in its’ clutching needles. The bark was chipped and weather-worn, in need of a decent coating of insect repellant.
The dead and dried needles littered the ground, covering most of the grass around the tree in a thick and prickly blanket. The inside of the living room and dining room, where Benji had entered was sparsely furnished and the dingy brown carpeting reeked of dog urine and old feces. He sighed softly, then turned on his heel and walked into the kitchen. His father followed him, stomping lightly. “If you’re late again, don’t bother coming home. I don’t want a lazy little shit like you here if you aren’t willing to be home at a decent hour.” He spat the words coldly, then turned and disappeared further into the house. Benji stared at the refrigerator a moment, his stomach growling lightly. He realized then that he had not had anything to eat since lunch at school. He glanced to the microwave oven on the white Formica countertop next to the refrigerator. It was only five thirty. Mom wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. He shook his head slightly, then walked off to his room, down a short hallway. He opened the door, which creaked in protest, and glared hard at the old hinges, wishing his father would get around to oiling them. He entered and closed the door.
His room was small, but it had that sort of fireplace coziness to it. The bed was worn, but tough. It was the second half of an old bunk bed set that belonged to his cousins in Minnesota. The cool California winter air blew lightly in through the only window in the room, which was partially hidden by a large fruit tree in the side yard. The walls were bare and the white paint was stained a light shade of yellow in some places from years of neglect. He sighed, dropped his backpack down on his bed, and then took a step over to the built-in bookcase that made up the entire far wall. He scanned through the rows of books on the white washed shelves, many of them covered in a thin layer of dust, but found nothing to his liking. He never did enjoy reading his parents’ books anyway. There was a desk to the right side of the built-in bookcase that was old and its veneer cracked and worn. Hmmm…time has not been your friend, desk. Benji thought to himself as he ran a hand lightly over its cracked surface, a thin trail in the dust on the side being left behind as he did so.
He rubbed the dust into his fingers, turning them an ashen grey hue, and grinned lightly. Dust. The final fate of those that die. Death is never very kind to the body…he let the thought trail off into the dark recesses of his mind. He plopped down on his bed, grabbed his backpack and took out an old and beaten up folder. The blue canvas surface of the large three-ring binder was covered with lead pencil scratches and ink stains. Several threads in the canvas were coming undone and frayed lightly near the lower left corner. He toyed with them absently as he unzipped the folder and leafed through it. He pulled out a piece of lined paper and a book and started doing his class assignments. The wind howled softly at his window, blowing the dingy brown curtains up like a living ghost, as if they were alive and could be played with at a simple whim. He glanced to them and rocked back and forth a moment, then shook himself into reality and returned his attention to his work. Closing his eyes a moment, Benji saw himself in his mind, huddle and curled into the fetus position, a few tears drifting down his sun-weathered cheeks, dropping like stones to shattered soundlessly on the floor. He blinked. No. I can’t be weak. I have too much to do right now, he thought quietly.
He grabbed his thin, lumpy pillow from the head of the bed, threw it at the wall behind him and leaned heavily back upon it as if he were far older than he appeared or felt. He curled his legs under him and began to read the text book. A couple of birds flapped outside of his window, their dark shapes blocking the thin sunlight from his view. He looked up and twisted around to see what was causing the annoying barricade of light. It was only a couple of large crows, perched lightly in the heavier branches of the fruit tree. They cawed loudly when they spied him starring at them through the dusty window. He smiled thinly, liking their cold company. “Damn crows,” he mumbled to the air around him. “Crow One and Crow Two, how do you do?” the birds squawked loudly and ruffled their feathers, starring back at him with their little beady black eyes. He held them in his stare silently a moment, locking his eyes with theirs. They seemed to bore right through him, their eyes were hard black coals of onyx that seemed to burn with a fire lit from within. Their eyes reflected nothing on the outside, they were merely four black dots placed on the sides of their heads and stared straight ahead at everything and nothing at once.
He was captivated in their alluring stare. With their eyes locked on each others, they seemed able to peer directly into one anothers’ souls. Benji remained twisted on his bed for a long moment, starring out the window into the eyes of these birds, still and silent as death itself. He dared not even breathe for fear of frightening them away. He was fascinated with all things dark and spooky. He thought for a moment of the collection of books he had hidden under his bed. Most them were cheap paperbacks of five cent horror novels written by would-bes and had-beens, but a few held sway over him, like Stephen Kings’ IT or Edgar Allan Poes’ Raven; the rest were merely collected as gifts from family and what few friends he had. Crow Two flushed its feathers a moment, trying to look bigger and scarier than Crow One, but was pelted in a reign of stinging squawks and pecking from the other. Benji blinked. The spell had been broken and he slowly tore himself from the window and returned to his studies. He sighed as the radio alarm clock in his room clicked over to six. “I’m only twelve, but I feel nearly a thousand.” He whispered softly into the air of the quiet room. He was tired of doing his homework, so he tossed the beaten old folder aside and reached under his bed, fishing around for a book or anything to take his mind away from his home. His hand brushed past an old and slightly rotten piece of floorboard which he moved to one side softly.
Then his hand closed on a leather bound tome that was bound shut with a worn and thin cord of frayed denim. The leather felt smooth and soft to his touch, and it reeked of many sleepless nights use. He drew out the tome silently, almost as if he feared its contents and held it reverently, like it was some sort of holy object capable of warding away vicious blood thirsty demons in the night. He lay upon his stomach, which again growled at him in protest, and slowly unwound the denim wrapping from its metal catch that was shaped like a dragons’ head. The book smelled of mildew and moist, damp earth. He held it tightly in his hands, hugging it to his chest a moment, careful not to bend the weather-tanned pages, then took hold of the plastic ball point stylus that was just inside the front cover. He began to write on a blank page. Just let the words flow naturally, he thought, let it all come out and then sort everything out in the end. It doesn’t matter right now, just write and feel the words come to life. He scribbled furiously across one page and then the next, his writing was quick and smooth, but sloppy and confused. As he wrote, he lost himself endlessly in the dark recesses of his mind, running with the winds of his hidden sacred worlds. He barely even noticed the door handle turn and click open. A shadow was cast across his page a moment and then moved silently away; a ghost in the light of the dying sun that still filtered through his window.
He looked up and was faced with a boy his own age that stood an inch shorter than himself. This child had the same blond locks of golden hair that fell in ragged and disarranged clumps around his piercing blue eyes. He had the same sun-tanned skin with a sprinkling of light freckles over the nose and under the eyes. His lips were a dark shade of red, as if they were drawn in blood by the artist that created this child. He wore a faded green plain tee-shirt and faded blue jeans with beaten up old white sneakers. His thin bony fingers twitched slowly and cat-like at his sides and he grinned softly at the corners of his mouth, snake-like and drew in a soft hissing breath. “Hey, bro.” He said softly, in a hoarse whisper. He took a step into the room, leaned against the desk lightly. His thin frame looked as if the desk were being used to support a mere bag of stick shaped bones, but he carried himself softly and with grace.
“Hey,” Benji replied, “what the hell is he doing in here?” he thought, “what’s up, Nate?” he glanced to his brother a moment, then back down to his writing and shoved the book under his pillow.
“Nothing, just wanted to see if you were home, is all.” Nate said quietly. He glanced around the room for a moment and then grinned when he saw the crows still perched outside on the fruit tree. “You got company, Ben,” He walked over to the window and leaned over his brothers’ bed, starring out at the birds. They looked back silently and then cawed at him. He stuck his tongue out at them and they ruffled their feathers a moment.
“You mean Crow One and Crow Two? Yeah, I know. They’ve been there for a while now. Careful, though I don’t want you to scare them away.” Benji said.
“Why not? I thought you didn’t like crows.”
“No, I do. Sort of. Look, I’m busy right now. Please let me be alone for a bit so I can get my homework done, okay Nate?”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Just wanted to come in and see if you were home is all. Oh, by the way, mom’s gonna be home soon so don’t stay in here forever.” He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. Benji sighed. He knew his brother only wanted time to hang out with him and perhaps even be close with him, but right now he decided he just didn’t have that sort of time. He wanted to finish all of his homework before the day faded into the night so he could spend more time in the blankets of the cool night air. His mind trailed off to his father and of the hell he’d go through sooner or later with him, but he let it go. He didn’t want to think of it right now. It disturbed him deeply and he curled up in a ball and rocked back and forth for several agonizingly long minutes. He shuddered a moment, feeling cold and blinked. He sat up. Looking out the window in the dim dusk, all he could see were just the two crows still sitting there on their perches as if they were waiting for something.
“What? Are you waiting for Death or something?” Benji spoke through the open window to the birds, half expecting them to speak back to him. They squawked at him loudly. He grinned. “Yeah, I kinda figured that, guys! Anyway, don’t let that cat next door find you…you’ll be gonners for sure then!” The birds merely ruffled their feathers and looked back at him as if they didn’t even care about the cat next door. He smiled lightly, thinly. Then he blinked again as the wind blew lightly through his window, chill and moist with the coming of rain. He sighed, pushing the window closed. The crows outside seemed to frown and he stopped half way. “Sorry guys, but I’m getting too cold to let the window remain open. See ya tomorrow!” He shoved the window closed with a soft tap as it slid into its place. He shook his head a second and then crawled back onto his bed. He huddled there a moment, with his pillow pressed against his chest hugging his legs to him for some veneer of warmth and silent comfort. He rocked slowly back and forth, trying to silence what was inside of him. He didn’t like feeling lonely, but he knew he was. He didn’t like feeling half dead inside, and yet he knew he already was more than just half dead. He blinked rapidly, hiding the burning tears that stung his eyes a moment and then picked up his discarded folder and began to read his textbook again.
The room slowly melted from twilight into a deep purple evening, making it hard for him to see. He glanced around and then got up, flipping a light switch near his bedroom door. The only light in the room, a small ceiling lamp, flickered a couple of seconds and then sparked with life. The room was bathed in a soft yellow luminosity, which seemed to lighten the mood he kept finding himself falling into. He climbed slowly back onto his bed, bent his head down, and began to finally make some half hearted effort to accomplish his assignments for one night. As he worked, he heard the sound of a car hush by his window and then turn the corner quietly. He recognized the sound of the engine and knew it was his mother, returning from a days’ hard work in the cities. He sighed, set his folder down, and then stood up and stretched deeply a moment. He glanced to the clock in his room and then moved over to the door. Sighing, he opened his bedroom door and stepped into the brightly lit hallway. He could hear muffled voices in the kitchen, so he turned on his heel and walked down the hallway. His mother was standing in the kitchen, facing the refrigerator with the door open, putting some groceries away while his father was leaning against another Formica countertop watching her.
“…all I’m saying is that he needs to be getting home sooner. I can’t have him wandering around town all damn day, dear!” he heard his father say as he entered the kitchen. His father looked over to him and grunted, then brushed swiftly past him and disappeared further into the house. His mother stood up from having put several bags of apples into the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and looked over to him. Her face was a mask of disapproval.
“Honestly, Ben, why the hell couldn’t you get home sooner?” She asked him coldly.
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Nie wanted to speak to me after school. She kept talking so much that I was late. I’ll do my best to be home on time from now on, okay?” Benji replied softly. He looked into his mothers’ ashen green eyes but they were cold and hard like diamonds. He would get nothing of sympathy or kindness from those eyes so he looked away.
“I don’t care what your damn teacher wanted Benjamin. You will be home at a decent hour tomorrow or there will be hell to pay, understand?” his mother snapped back. Benji looked a little shocked. She hadn’t yelled at him in this way for several months and he hadn’t really done anything wrong. She saw the hurt in his eyes even though he did his best to hide it from her. She went over to him and hugged him before he had a chance to leave. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Just for your dad’s sake and mine as well, try to be home a little earlier tomorrow. Alright?” She whispered to him and then let go, turning around and began to make preparations for dinner.
“Like hell you didn’t mean to yell, woman.” Benji thought to himself, but he found himself hugging her back lightly. It felt good to at least receive some version of comfort from at least one of his parents. It made the hidden emptiness inside of him seem smaller somehow. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. What time’s dinner?” He said to her. She shrugged and he nodded, turning to go back to his room. At the door of his room, he remained standing for a moment and then abruptly turned and took another couple of steps further down the hallway and turned right. He stood facing another wooden door and knocked lightly on it. His brothers’ voice came softly from inside.
“Come in.” he said. Benji opened the door quietly and stepped inside. His brothers’ room was a little larger than Benjis’. There were a few posters plastered to the wall with clear plastic tape. Most were of wolves taken from several Nation Geographic magazines, but a couple were rock star posters of Metallica and Mega Death. Nate’s bed sat in the far right corner of his room, near the window, which looked out on the scraggly backyard. Benji padded over to his brothers’ bed on the hardwood floor silently and plopped down. There was a small wooden desk next to the foot of the bed and an old and beaten up Nintendo game system sat upon the pocked and scared surface as well as an old television. A six foot tall book case sat a couple feet from the desk on the right side of it, filled with books. Most of them were on wolves and other creatures of the night, but a few of them were martial arts books written by famous people in the self defense fields. Benji scanned through the titles a moment and shrugged. His brother sat on his bed, a controller for the Nintendo in his hand, pressing the buttons rapidly as if he were at one with the device.
“Whacha want, bro?” he said to Benji, starring into the glowing television screen.
“Nothing really. Just wondering what you were up to is all.” Benji replied, watching his brother play his game. “How’s it going, with the game, I mean?”
“Slow. Building these character levels takes so damned long, I wonder why I even bother.” Nate replied with a grin. Benji stood up and glanced out the window. He saw a sparrow land on the scraggly apple tree out back and watched as it bobbed up and down on the thin branch that it perched upon. He grinned a moment, but it quickly faded. The backyard was a mess of thin beaten paths through the browning patches of grass and dusty large fallacies of bare earth. There were two aluminum sheds in the backyard, one white and the other green. The green one had a large dent in the right side from when Nate had kicked it trying to be cool in front of his friends. Some of the paint in the large sliding double doors was chipping off and rust covered the sides and tin roof. Cobwebs hung in large clusters in the half open doorway. The concrete pad flooring was cracked and full of dented pocks which resembled the face of the moon. A few metal shelves lined the walls and cases of them sat on the floor. They were covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. He shuddered. He didn’t like the way the sheds seemed to cling to whatever version of life they had in them. He hated them. He hated the memories they brought with them as he stared out the window at them silently. A buzzing sound from Nate’s game tore his vision mercilessly from them. He blinked and sighed, then glanced to his brother.
Nate glared hard at the old television which had gone to a blank screen from where the buzzing sound had come. “TV died on you again?” Benji asked him softly.
“Yeah, damn thing is such a piece of junk. I wish dad would let me get a new one.” Nate replied and crawled over to the foot of his bed and turned the television off. Nate shrugged when he glanced to his brother who stood near the window and then got up. He stretched a moment and yawned. “I was getting bored with the game anyway.” He said.
“Yeah, I know. I could tell. You looked as if you were half asleep playing it.” Benji replied, “You really should learn to take more breaks from playing your video games, Nate, otherwise you’ll end up with a brain of mush.” He grinned at his brother, but it quickly faded. He moved to the door and returned to his room. It was almost pitch black outside. Night had finally conquered the daylight for another twelve hours and the very first specks of stars were starting to poke through the rich black velvet of the night sky. Cars continued to hush past Benji’s window quietly. He plopped down on his bed and remained there until he was called to dinner by his mother. After having eaten dinner, he found himself again sitting on his bed, huddled in the dim light of the ceiling lamp as if trying to protect himself from the cold outside. He remained there locked in a fetus huddle, curled on the bed and rocking back and forth until he finally slipped into a deep slumber.
He woke to find himself standing on a grass knoll, starring out at a blood red crystalline sky. Bizarre animal noises could be heard from a dark purple steaming jungle that lay off to his right. A small foot path flowed like a snake out from the jungle and met his feet with a silent rush. He blinked a moment, not sure of what to do nor of where he was. He turned and faced the jungle head on a moment, starring hard into it. Something slipped from the shadows as if they had once been part of them, melting from them. It looked like it was spilt ink, but he couldn’t see at this distance. He took a step towards the something and it slithered away into the jungle once more, embracing the shadows silently; effortlessly. He raised an eyebrow. “What the hell’s going on?,” he thought, “where am I?” the words hissed in his mind loudly and echoed in the air around him.
“am I…am I…am I….” Whispered softly in his ears. He glanced around trying to find whoever it was that had spoken, but saw no one. He was alone in this strange world.
“I don’t want to be alone.” He said softly to himself as he walked towards the jungle.
“You’re alone. You’re alone. You’re alone.” The strange voice whispered back as he walked. He neared the jungle and it writhed with anticipation as if it were being burnt and eaten alive by some insect. He peered as far as he could into the jungle, only a couple of feet, but saw nothing. He couldn’t find whatever the something was that had slithered from the shadows only to retreat back into them again when he came near. He shivered. Then he took another step towards the jungle and it coiled and writhed as if begging him to enter. He was frightened but he stood his ground a moment.
“Any one out there?” he called into the jungle “Any one at all?”
“No…no…no…no…” a voice seemed to whisper on the light breeze that flowed from the jungle. The breeze was hot and sticky with poignant heartbreak and the stench of death. He wrinkled his nose at the scent. He looked around and picked up a large branch that lay near the path. It was only about five feet long and a couple inches thick, but if there was danger in this alien world, then at least he’d be prepared to fight. The branch was pocked with hundreds of tiny holes and what seemed like coarse black hairs were sprouting from them. A couple of white and red polka-dotted ants crawled this way and that on it and he swept them away. They hissed in protest but soon left. He took a deep breath, let it out in an audible sigh and then stepped into the shadows of the jungle silently. There was no sound at all inside the foliage of the jungle. It was as if everything had gone suddenly still at the presence of God himself. Nothing stirred, nothing moved. Time stood still here. Silently and forever watching those that entered this jungle but doing nothing to keep them out or let them know they weren’t alone.
Benji walked for what seemed like hours and then stopped. He wasn’t getting anywhere. In the whole time that he had entered this alien world, nothing changed once he entered the jungle. Not one leaf looked different. In fact, on a closer inspection, he saw that they were all the same. All of them were a deep blue hue and they were all perfectly square. There was no sign of rot or insect damage or anything on them. It was if they had been made of plastic. He looked quizzically at the leaves of the pants around him for a moment and then raised an eyebrow slightly. He wondered what was going on, but didn’t have an answer to that yet. Something rustled in the branches of a fern nearby and he jumped, not having expected it. He cautioned himself to be calm and then walked towards the direction of the movement. “Calm down, it’s just an animal…I hope.” Benji whispered to himself softly as he walked. “Remember your training.” He thought of his martial arts training briefly and pictured all the metals and trophies that he and his brother had won together in competitions which were kept in boxes in the garage. He shook his head clear of the thoughts and looked around. He was standing in a small patch of the forest with several ferns and other large trees surrounding him. He glanced to the left and then to the right but no one seemed to be around. He shrugged and then turned to go back the way he had come. Something was wrong. He could sense it.
He looked back the way he had come and panic crossed his face a brief moment. The path on which he had tread was gone. It had been swallowed the by the jungle as if it had never been. All that remained of it now was just a small dirt trail that protruded from under his feet a few inches and then faded away into grass and dead leaves. His breath quickened and caught in his throat. “Damn, he thought, “what the hell is going on? Why is the path gone? Where is every one? I’m alone now!”
“You’re all alone…you’re all alone….you’re all alone…” a voice in the shadows of the ferns hissed back to him like a broken leaking gas pipe. He looked around with tears stinging his eyes a moment, but he wiped them quickly away in anger and frustration.
“Where are you? Why don’t you show yourself?” he called into the jungle. He remained there on his patch of ground, breath choking in his throat and his heart thumping rapidly in his chest. A thin scowl appeared on his lips, but he banished it. He wasn’t ready to give into his anger just yet. He wanted to know what was going on first.
“Where are you?…Where are you?….Where are you?…” the voice hissed back at him in an echo. Benji closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be happening. He opened his eyes slowly and hoped he’d wake up from this sudden nightmare and find himself on his bed, comforted by the silent and purple-hued shadows of the night. It wasn’t the case. He was still trapped in this alien world. This just couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It was some twisted and sick trick his mind was playing on him. All he had to do was wake up, snap out of it, but he didn’t seem to have the strength to pull himself out. He fought back the stinging tears in his eyes, but found himself collapsing to the ground. He lay there in a huddled heap, shivering with fear. He rocked back and forth. A voice started to hiss in his mind, as he rocked, like a hundred leaking gas pipes all sprouting out their toxic fumes at once. He clamped his head in his hands and rocked a little faster.
“You’re alone and dead inside. No one wants you,” the voice whispered seductively. It was a bitter-sweet sensuous voice that lulled him into a deep peace and a heated anger at the same time. He wanted it to shut up and leave him alone and at the same time, he wanted it to keep talking to him. He wanted it to whisper of things that would make him feel comfortable and safe, but he only rocked a little harder and squeezed his eyes shut against it. It was no use. “Let me take you away. I’ll love you. I’ll want you. I’ll need you.” It whispered to him.
“You don’t want me or love me or need me, damn it!” Benji whispered hoarsely back. “You only want to hurt me. Leave me alone!”
“Oh, but I do love you. I only want you.” The voice hissed back harder and louder in his mind. “Let me take you.” Benji rocked harder still and he found himself cradled in a bed of dry moss and dead leaves. He kept his eyes shut, taking in the scent of the moss as it lay on the ground and reeked of decay. It was putrid, but better than listening to that damn voice in his head or wherever it was coming from. He cracked his eyes open a moment and saw only deep purple shadows. He relaxed a little. He could barely see, but the blurred images in front of him looked as if he were in his room with the covers of his bed pulled tightly around him. Did he dare risk fully awakening? He opened his eyes slowly and again found himself huddled in a mass on the floor of the jungle. He screamed. He wanted to run and hide, but there wasn’t anywhere he could go.
“Let me go!” he screamed in his mind, “Damn you! Let me go! Please!”
For a moment, it seemed as if the voice in his mind would finally let him go. It remained silent and a tear slid down his pale face and landed softly in the moss of the forest floor. He slowly unclamped his head from his hands and sat up, shuddering slightly. He looked around. Everything was the same still, nothing had changed. Movement caught his attention off to his right and he grabbed his branch and ran towards it. He only took a few steps before slamming hard into something. The foliage around him rocked back and forth and he reached out to steady himself on a tree. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t even feel the tree. It wasn’t even there. His hand lay on something that looked like forest and growth around him, but it wasn’t. It was hard and smooth. Not even a crack could be found along the surface as he ran his hand around it. It seemed to be round, but he wasn’t sure. He threw the branch he still clutched in his hand up and it bounced off the crystalline sky with a dull resounding thud. He then picked it up and held it out straight in front of him. It pressed hard into the surface of the foliage barrier. He then turned slightly to one side and ran, dragging the branch along with him. It slid around on the barrier like it was piece of ice on a wet surface. He rammed himself into the barrier several times before finding out that there was no exit and it was indeed round. It was a cage and he was the animal on display.
He shuddered softly, feeling another wave of panic hitting him, but he fought and beat it down. He wasn’t going to give up now. He was too scared to do so. He sat down in what he thought of as the center of his cage and waited for what felt like hours. He stared straight ahead of himself like he was a zombie. The trees and ferns near him rustled and the shadows slowly parted as something warped from them effortlessly, melting from them like dying icicles. It dripped slowly onto the forest floor and then pooled near Benji like ink that ran from the stopper of a bottle. The black substance reflected nothing as a beam of sunlight struck it slightly to the left. It merely just absorbed the light and continued to grow slowly. Then the dripping stopped and it remained there, silent and frozen. Benji looked at it quietly, just waiting for whatever would happen next. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. He was a plastic mannequin of himself, frozen and dead forever in the grip of this foreboding jungle. Then the black liquid wiggled a moment from the center out and it sprang upwards like someone had thrown a stone into the center of it. It shot towards Benji and engulfed him completely.
Everything was in total darkness. There was no ground, no sky, no up or down, nor left or right. Benji merely existed in nothingness and everything all at once. He could see clearly his own body, but everything else was bathed in an oil-slick pitch that oozed and bubbled with life and yet seemed so dead and cold. He reached out and tried to touch the blackness, but found he couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t smell or even taste. All he could do was see and so he closed his eyes, but he remained still seeing the pitch black of this endless void. He tried to call out and see if any one would answer him, but nothing happened. His words broke and fell apart at his lips’ edge and died then and there. He couldn’t even talk. He tried to think, but his thoughts melted away from him like water through bleach-white sand and beaded up again too far for him to hear them or comprehend them. The darkness was overwhelming him and he tried to stand and run, but got nowhere. He was stuck, frozen. He had become the mannequin that no one wanted, locked away into an endless void of nothingness and left to rot. Panic welled deep within him. There seemed to be no way out; no where to run and hide. The void bubbled and oozed into the shape of a humanoid creature in front of him and he closed his eyes, hoping it was all just a nightmare that he’d eventually wake from.
Inky blackness dripped from the finger tips of the creature as it reached out a thin black hand to Benji and caressed him gently on the cheek. The touch felt like molten iron and seared his flesh raw but it was cold as death and froze him to the core. He opened his mouth to scream in agony, but nothing came out. The sound bubbled out in a gurgle as if he were choking on his own blood. The creature took a step forward on its murky legs and left behind patches of oil slick as it lurched forward. It seemed human but also as if it were a cheap mechanical robot controlled by a child. Benji tried to back away from it, but it was useless. He was frozen in place by his fear. He took in a deep shuddering breath and tried his best to quell the rising fear inside of himself, but it did little to help him. He was shaking from head to toe and swallowed hard, acidly dry bile back down his throat. “What the hell is this thing?” He thought to himself.
The creature now stood just a few inches from him and he could see clearly that it did seem to be more human than an oil-slick denizen of hell. It had eyes that were deep set and putrid with waste and bile coughing out of them in great dollops of tears that ran down its slimy face and dripped to the ground. A small delicate nose protruded from under its eyes in a gently sweeping downward hill. A thin and jagged line creased inward under the nose to reveal a mouth of filth and decay, teeth that glistened a deep black hue and bubbled over with a foul smelling slime. Benji felt himself start to choke as if he were about to vomit, but he forced the abhorrent tasting bile back down and did his best to hold his ground even though he was still shaking from his unexplained trepidation of this creature. It reached a hand out to him and he shrank away from it like a mouse scurrying from the hunting hawk. A tear slid down his face as he faced the creature. “Leave me alone. Go away.” He whispered in a dry rasping voice. The creature stood there in place for what seemed like forever and then it suddenly lunged at him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Benji let out a terrified gasp, but it simply was frozen in his throat and never escaped his lips.
The hands of the bile-covered creature burnt into his clothing and sickening vomit like ooze bit deep into his soft, tender flesh. He squirmed and thrashed out as if he were a fish out of water. He cried and kicked back at the creature, but nothing seemed to work. His shoes merely left small pocks in the creatures’ flesh and didn’t seem to hurt or effect the creature in any way. Finally, exhausted and too drained to think clearly about fighting back, he went completely limp in the arms of the creature whom cradled him like a small infant holding him gently in his arms. The black void around him seemed to be spinning out of control and he closed his eyes tightly, shuddering as he tried to draw air into his aching and starving lungs. He was dying. He knew that now. This was Death come to claim his soul and try as he might, there was no point in warding off the inevitable. Every one dies at one point or another in time and Benji felt that there was really no more point in going on with his life. He simply wanted to rest and be at peace. Let Death do its’ job and get it over with. His eyes were glazed over with a thin sheeting of glassy clouds, murky and still. They had lost all their color. His face was ashen and sickly. His hands quivered neurotically, still trying to grasp something that would keep him alive, but they latched onto nothing.
It was over and he knew it. His mind wandered about the dark recesses of his brain like a lost child, exploring each tunnel and cavern with leisure and resting gently into each passing thought as it formed in the birthing of a child and then died away again in the aging of a human. He witnessed his birth and then his first step and his first tentative words. He heard his mother whisper soft blessings to him as he slept soundly in his crib. He watched as flowers bloomed in the summer and wilted in the fall. He felt clouds whispering past him in the deep velvet sky overhead. Everything seemed to sparkle anew as the bright orange-yellow sunlight touched it with a soft and delicate kiss. Dew droplets on the grass glittered like diamonds and he felt one on his finger and stared into it, watching silently as the world slipped away. He smiled softly. Then he let loose a soft giggle. This was peace, contentment, happiness. It was joy wrapped around him like a blanket and it was tangible and real. He was warm and fuzzy inside; cool and soft outside. The world blurred for a moment and then shot back into focus. Everything was still new and shinning. Nothing seemed to be in decay or in need of repair. There was the scent of happiness in the air and it wafted over him like a sweet butterfly in the mid-morning rays of the sun, glistening brightly like a childs’ eyes as it sees for the first time in its life.
He felt something inside of his very core tugging harshly on him, dragging him back to the reality of the alien world and forcing him to awaken slightly. He quivered and convulsed, a choking rasp escaping his thin lips. The creature lurched back toward the way it had come, sinking slowly into the ground, hands tightly fastened on him like a vice. He felt stretched and spread thin, much like butter that had been scraped over too much stale bread, bent and broken inside as if he were twisted fragments of metal. The creature was up to its knees in the ground, still holding Benji tightly, when he dropped him as he were so much dead weight into the empty void. He lay there, silent, dazed and frozen inside. Benji tried to regain control of his twitching body, but it didn’t seem to help. His paroxysms made him feel like he was outside of himself, watching his body die slowly and painfully, looking as if it were some type of android that had been severely electrocuted and its’ battery was just about to short out. His breath came in short, ragged strings and his eyes were glazed over. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth as if he were some type of rabid animal gone mad from infection.
A thin whispering laugh echoed in Benji’s ears slowly, hissing like pent up steam and threatening to tear the remaining shards of his fragile mind from the framework of their base. The creature reached out a hand to him as he sank further into the abyss of dark emptiness and stroked his cheek gently, almost soothingly; a mother trying to calm its’ sick child from the rages of the fever. The touch seared his flesh and scorched him to the bone and then beyond into his very soul. He wanted to scream out, but at the same time he enjoyed the pain it caused for him. He craved it and wanted more of it. He never wanted it to stop. A thin ragged breath rattled snake-like and dead in his throat, a gurgle at best for his voice to use to scream out. The hand of the creature left a thin oozing mark on his pale-tan flesh as it finally slipped into the underworld of the alien world and disappeared. Benji lay there in the void, neither seeming to be laying on the ground itself or floating in the air. He simply existed, shaking and shivering like a lost hungry puppy, starving for whatever imperfect life he could get his hands upon.
He was barely aware of the void seeming to spin slowly about him, drunk from the elixir of his own death and reincarnation back into the void of life. He swallowed hard, a burning in his throat as he did so, almost choking on his own saliva. Slowly his drifting shivering body came back to his control and he lost the glazed look in his eyes. A single tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek, cooling the burnt and seared flesh as it slipped off his cheek and shattered in a ripple somewhere below him. He felt the ground, if that was what he really was laying upon, ripple as the tear smashed into it like a small stone dropped into a placid lake. A new sensation slowly crept into him. It seemed foreign and feigned, but he didn’t try to fight it off. There didn’t seem to be any point in warding off whatever it was. His eye lids slowly became heavier and harder to remain open, they drooped downwards as if he were old and no longer ignited the sparks of fire inside of his heart and soul. His breathing slowly aged back to being normal, drawing in slow quiet breaths of air into his aching lungs. Even the pain he felt retreated from him, liquidating itself from him in a running torrent of emptiness.
He felt no emotions any more, he was just a shell; barren and crushed. Closing his eyes, he let the remaining ripples carry his mind off into the furthest of the shadows, comforted by the arms of a protective mother watching over her sleeping newborn carefully. He drifted for a time, aimless and wandering each ripple as it came and then letting it go like so much fuzz from a dandelion on a soft summer breeze as he took up the next ripple and rode it gently. Nothing sought to impress itself upon his mind, nothing tried to pry into his soul from the outside either. He was finally at peace and, here in this dead hollow empty black space, he could find his rest and be at peace within himself. The last thing he felt before shutting down completely was his mind shattering completely, as it finally became totally unglued from its matchstick framework. A soft sigh escaped his parched lips and wisped away from him in a silvery breath, breaking apart on the unseen currents of the drifting world.
Chapter One
“Dark deceptions kill the light…”
The street was cold and vacant. Benji knew this as soon as he rounded the corner of the sidewalk. Only a small aluminum soda can, rattling down the gutter from a soft cool breeze, challenged the deafening silence. The trees and shabby looking shrubbery that lined the sidewalk were bare and stripped clean of nearly every leaf. A few of them clung tenuously to their twigs, refusing to acknowledge Natures’ destruction to their lives and the coming of winter. Emptiness and a deep, cryptic fear uncurled themselves within his heart and he remained there, frozen to the sidewalk as dead and lifelessly cold as the leaves left in the gutters; crumpled and abandoned, waiting to be swept away in ashes and debris. He blinked a second, sighed loudly, his breath curling in hot misty puffs on the cool evening air, then he glanced skyward for a brief moment.
Damn, he thought, Dad’s gonna kill me. I’m late again. Shit. He shouldered his green schoolbag more tightly to his back, as if seeking some sort of warmth from the rough canvas cloth. Sniffling a brief second against the light autumn wind, he looked to the blood-red sun, a hazy sphere of blotchy clouds in the darkling twilight. He headed for home, though his feet felt like lead bricks, slowing him to a ramble over the uneven broken and pocked pavement of the cement sidewalk.
Damn Mrs. Nie, he thought as he kicked a loose stone sending it skittering across the street to shatter with a loud crack against the curb. May God take her soul and drown it, his mind screamed, I’m late simply because she “had” to talk to me after school about my homework being late again. What’s it to her? Damn whore! But, still I’d rather be anywhere than home. He reached his corner of the block, crossed the road quickly, and jumped over the short concrete step to the front door. He reached for the worn and beaten brass handle, but it was wrenched from his grasp. “Where the hell have you been?” the man in front of him glowered down to him, blocking his way into the silent comfort of home from the autumn night.
“At school.” Came the short, hoarse reply. He trembled, but stood his ground a moment, trying to look defiant, but collapsed under the others’ hard stare.
“Get the hell inside, boy. Now!” the man yelled. Benji saw the others’ icy blue eyes shine brightly in the dim light of the cobweb covered porch lamp. He dreaded what might happen next. He stepped quietly, obediently inside, brushing past the older man swiftly.
“Yes, father.” He said softly as he entered the house. It was a small one-story yellow stucco painted building with a rotting red wooden fence bordering the two street-side boundaries of the tiny backyard and another brown stained wood fence making the border between their neighbor behind them and to the left of them. The front lawn was green grass, but turning brown in large patches as fall slowly died off being choked by winters’ frozen touch. There was a large pine tree kitty-corner to the right side front street window, towering over the houses on this block like some over protective parenting grandmother, throwing its’ large branches around a thin telephone wire that disappeared from view in its’ clutching needles. The bark was chipped and weather-worn, in need of a decent coating of insect repellant.
The dead and dried needles littered the ground, covering most of the grass around the tree in a thick and prickly blanket. The inside of the living room and dining room, where Benji had entered was sparsely furnished and the dingy brown carpeting reeked of dog urine and old feces. He sighed softly, then turned on his heel and walked into the kitchen. His father followed him, stomping lightly. “If you’re late again, don’t bother coming home. I don’t want a lazy little shit like you here if you aren’t willing to be home at a decent hour.” He spat the words coldly, then turned and disappeared further into the house. Benji stared at the refrigerator a moment, his stomach growling lightly. He realized then that he had not had anything to eat since lunch at school. He glanced to the microwave oven on the white Formica countertop next to the refrigerator. It was only five thirty. Mom wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. He shook his head slightly, then walked off to his room, down a short hallway. He opened the door, which creaked in protest, and glared hard at the old hinges, wishing his father would get around to oiling them. He entered and closed the door.
His room was small, but it had that sort of fireplace coziness to it. The bed was worn, but tough. It was the second half of an old bunk bed set that belonged to his cousins in Minnesota. The cool California winter air blew lightly in through the only window in the room, which was partially hidden by a large fruit tree in the side yard. The walls were bare and the white paint was stained a light shade of yellow in some places from years of neglect. He sighed, dropped his backpack down on his bed, and then took a step over to the built-in bookcase that made up the entire far wall. He scanned through the rows of books on the white washed shelves, many of them covered in a thin layer of dust, but found nothing to his liking. He never did enjoy reading his parents’ books anyway. There was a desk to the right side of the built-in bookcase that was old and its veneer cracked and worn. Hmmm…time has not been your friend, desk. Benji thought to himself as he ran a hand lightly over its cracked surface, a thin trail in the dust on the side being left behind as he did so.
He rubbed the dust into his fingers, turning them an ashen grey hue, and grinned lightly. Dust. The final fate of those that die. Death is never very kind to the body…he let the thought trail off into the dark recesses of his mind. He plopped down on his bed, grabbed his backpack and took out an old and beaten up folder. The blue canvas surface of the large three-ring binder was covered with lead pencil scratches and ink stains. Several threads in the canvas were coming undone and frayed lightly near the lower left corner. He toyed with them absently as he unzipped the folder and leafed through it. He pulled out a piece of lined paper and a book and started doing his class assignments. The wind howled softly at his window, blowing the dingy brown curtains up like a living ghost, as if they were alive and could be played with at a simple whim. He glanced to them and rocked back and forth a moment, then shook himself into reality and returned his attention to his work. Closing his eyes a moment, Benji saw himself in his mind, huddle and curled into the fetus position, a few tears drifting down his sun-weathered cheeks, dropping like stones to shattered soundlessly on the floor. He blinked. No. I can’t be weak. I have too much to do right now, he thought quietly.
He grabbed his thin, lumpy pillow from the head of the bed, threw it at the wall behind him and leaned heavily back upon it as if he were far older than he appeared or felt. He curled his legs under him and began to read the text book. A couple of birds flapped outside of his window, their dark shapes blocking the thin sunlight from his view. He looked up and twisted around to see what was causing the annoying barricade of light. It was only a couple of large crows, perched lightly in the heavier branches of the fruit tree. They cawed loudly when they spied him starring at them through the dusty window. He smiled thinly, liking their cold company. “Damn crows,” he mumbled to the air around him. “Crow One and Crow Two, how do you do?” the birds squawked loudly and ruffled their feathers, starring back at him with their little beady black eyes. He held them in his stare silently a moment, locking his eyes with theirs. They seemed to bore right through him, their eyes were hard black coals of onyx that seemed to burn with a fire lit from within. Their eyes reflected nothing on the outside, they were merely four black dots placed on the sides of their heads and stared straight ahead at everything and nothing at once.
He was captivated in their alluring stare. With their eyes locked on each others, they seemed able to peer directly into one anothers’ souls. Benji remained twisted on his bed for a long moment, starring out the window into the eyes of these birds, still and silent as death itself. He dared not even breathe for fear of frightening them away. He was fascinated with all things dark and spooky. He thought for a moment of the collection of books he had hidden under his bed. Most them were cheap paperbacks of five cent horror novels written by would-bes and had-beens, but a few held sway over him, like Stephen Kings’ IT or Edgar Allan Poes’ Raven; the rest were merely collected as gifts from family and what few friends he had. Crow Two flushed its feathers a moment, trying to look bigger and scarier than Crow One, but was pelted in a reign of stinging squawks and pecking from the other. Benji blinked. The spell had been broken and he slowly tore himself from the window and returned to his studies. He sighed as the radio alarm clock in his room clicked over to six. “I’m only twelve, but I feel nearly a thousand.” He whispered softly into the air of the quiet room. He was tired of doing his homework, so he tossed the beaten old folder aside and reached under his bed, fishing around for a book or anything to take his mind away from his home. His hand brushed past an old and slightly rotten piece of floorboard which he moved to one side softly.
Then his hand closed on a leather bound tome that was bound shut with a worn and thin cord of frayed denim. The leather felt smooth and soft to his touch, and it reeked of many sleepless nights use. He drew out the tome silently, almost as if he feared its contents and held it reverently, like it was some sort of holy object capable of warding away vicious blood thirsty demons in the night. He lay upon his stomach, which again growled at him in protest, and slowly unwound the denim wrapping from its metal catch that was shaped like a dragons’ head. The book smelled of mildew and moist, damp earth. He held it tightly in his hands, hugging it to his chest a moment, careful not to bend the weather-tanned pages, then took hold of the plastic ball point stylus that was just inside the front cover. He began to write on a blank page. Just let the words flow naturally, he thought, let it all come out and then sort everything out in the end. It doesn’t matter right now, just write and feel the words come to life. He scribbled furiously across one page and then the next, his writing was quick and smooth, but sloppy and confused. As he wrote, he lost himself endlessly in the dark recesses of his mind, running with the winds of his hidden sacred worlds. He barely even noticed the door handle turn and click open. A shadow was cast across his page a moment and then moved silently away; a ghost in the light of the dying sun that still filtered through his window.
He looked up and was faced with a boy his own age that stood an inch shorter than himself. This child had the same blond locks of golden hair that fell in ragged and disarranged clumps around his piercing blue eyes. He had the same sun-tanned skin with a sprinkling of light freckles over the nose and under the eyes. His lips were a dark shade of red, as if they were drawn in blood by the artist that created this child. He wore a faded green plain tee-shirt and faded blue jeans with beaten up old white sneakers. His thin bony fingers twitched slowly and cat-like at his sides and he grinned softly at the corners of his mouth, snake-like and drew in a soft hissing breath. “Hey, bro.” He said softly, in a hoarse whisper. He took a step into the room, leaned against the desk lightly. His thin frame looked as if the desk were being used to support a mere bag of stick shaped bones, but he carried himself softly and with grace.
“Hey,” Benji replied, “what the hell is he doing in here?” he thought, “what’s up, Nate?” he glanced to his brother a moment, then back down to his writing and shoved the book under his pillow.
“Nothing, just wanted to see if you were home, is all.” Nate said quietly. He glanced around the room for a moment and then grinned when he saw the crows still perched outside on the fruit tree. “You got company, Ben,” He walked over to the window and leaned over his brothers’ bed, starring out at the birds. They looked back silently and then cawed at him. He stuck his tongue out at them and they ruffled their feathers a moment.
“You mean Crow One and Crow Two? Yeah, I know. They’ve been there for a while now. Careful, though I don’t want you to scare them away.” Benji said.
“Why not? I thought you didn’t like crows.”
“No, I do. Sort of. Look, I’m busy right now. Please let me be alone for a bit so I can get my homework done, okay Nate?”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Just wanted to come in and see if you were home is all. Oh, by the way, mom’s gonna be home soon so don’t stay in here forever.” He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. Benji sighed. He knew his brother only wanted time to hang out with him and perhaps even be close with him, but right now he decided he just didn’t have that sort of time. He wanted to finish all of his homework before the day faded into the night so he could spend more time in the blankets of the cool night air. His mind trailed off to his father and of the hell he’d go through sooner or later with him, but he let it go. He didn’t want to think of it right now. It disturbed him deeply and he curled up in a ball and rocked back and forth for several agonizingly long minutes. He shuddered a moment, feeling cold and blinked. He sat up. Looking out the window in the dim dusk, all he could see were just the two crows still sitting there on their perches as if they were waiting for something.
“What? Are you waiting for Death or something?” Benji spoke through the open window to the birds, half expecting them to speak back to him. They squawked at him loudly. He grinned. “Yeah, I kinda figured that, guys! Anyway, don’t let that cat next door find you…you’ll be gonners for sure then!” The birds merely ruffled their feathers and looked back at him as if they didn’t even care about the cat next door. He smiled lightly, thinly. Then he blinked again as the wind blew lightly through his window, chill and moist with the coming of rain. He sighed, pushing the window closed. The crows outside seemed to frown and he stopped half way. “Sorry guys, but I’m getting too cold to let the window remain open. See ya tomorrow!” He shoved the window closed with a soft tap as it slid into its place. He shook his head a second and then crawled back onto his bed. He huddled there a moment, with his pillow pressed against his chest hugging his legs to him for some veneer of warmth and silent comfort. He rocked slowly back and forth, trying to silence what was inside of him. He didn’t like feeling lonely, but he knew he was. He didn’t like feeling half dead inside, and yet he knew he already was more than just half dead. He blinked rapidly, hiding the burning tears that stung his eyes a moment and then picked up his discarded folder and began to read his textbook again.
The room slowly melted from twilight into a deep purple evening, making it hard for him to see. He glanced around and then got up, flipping a light switch near his bedroom door. The only light in the room, a small ceiling lamp, flickered a couple of seconds and then sparked with life. The room was bathed in a soft yellow luminosity, which seemed to lighten the mood he kept finding himself falling into. He climbed slowly back onto his bed, bent his head down, and began to finally make some half hearted effort to accomplish his assignments for one night. As he worked, he heard the sound of a car hush by his window and then turn the corner quietly. He recognized the sound of the engine and knew it was his mother, returning from a days’ hard work in the cities. He sighed, set his folder down, and then stood up and stretched deeply a moment. He glanced to the clock in his room and then moved over to the door. Sighing, he opened his bedroom door and stepped into the brightly lit hallway. He could hear muffled voices in the kitchen, so he turned on his heel and walked down the hallway. His mother was standing in the kitchen, facing the refrigerator with the door open, putting some groceries away while his father was leaning against another Formica countertop watching her.
“…all I’m saying is that he needs to be getting home sooner. I can’t have him wandering around town all damn day, dear!” he heard his father say as he entered the kitchen. His father looked over to him and grunted, then brushed swiftly past him and disappeared further into the house. His mother stood up from having put several bags of apples into the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and looked over to him. Her face was a mask of disapproval.
“Honestly, Ben, why the hell couldn’t you get home sooner?” She asked him coldly.
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Nie wanted to speak to me after school. She kept talking so much that I was late. I’ll do my best to be home on time from now on, okay?” Benji replied softly. He looked into his mothers’ ashen green eyes but they were cold and hard like diamonds. He would get nothing of sympathy or kindness from those eyes so he looked away.
“I don’t care what your damn teacher wanted Benjamin. You will be home at a decent hour tomorrow or there will be hell to pay, understand?” his mother snapped back. Benji looked a little shocked. She hadn’t yelled at him in this way for several months and he hadn’t really done anything wrong. She saw the hurt in his eyes even though he did his best to hide it from her. She went over to him and hugged him before he had a chance to leave. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Just for your dad’s sake and mine as well, try to be home a little earlier tomorrow. Alright?” She whispered to him and then let go, turning around and began to make preparations for dinner.
“Like hell you didn’t mean to yell, woman.” Benji thought to himself, but he found himself hugging her back lightly. It felt good to at least receive some version of comfort from at least one of his parents. It made the hidden emptiness inside of him seem smaller somehow. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. What time’s dinner?” He said to her. She shrugged and he nodded, turning to go back to his room. At the door of his room, he remained standing for a moment and then abruptly turned and took another couple of steps further down the hallway and turned right. He stood facing another wooden door and knocked lightly on it. His brothers’ voice came softly from inside.
“Come in.” he said. Benji opened the door quietly and stepped inside. His brothers’ room was a little larger than Benjis’. There were a few posters plastered to the wall with clear plastic tape. Most were of wolves taken from several Nation Geographic magazines, but a couple were rock star posters of Metallica and Mega Death. Nate’s bed sat in the far right corner of his room, near the window, which looked out on the scraggly backyard. Benji padded over to his brothers’ bed on the hardwood floor silently and plopped down. There was a small wooden desk next to the foot of the bed and an old and beaten up Nintendo game system sat upon the pocked and scared surface as well as an old television. A six foot tall book case sat a couple feet from the desk on the right side of it, filled with books. Most of them were on wolves and other creatures of the night, but a few of them were martial arts books written by famous people in the self defense fields. Benji scanned through the titles a moment and shrugged. His brother sat on his bed, a controller for the Nintendo in his hand, pressing the buttons rapidly as if he were at one with the device.
“Whacha want, bro?” he said to Benji, starring into the glowing television screen.
“Nothing really. Just wondering what you were up to is all.” Benji replied, watching his brother play his game. “How’s it going, with the game, I mean?”
“Slow. Building these character levels takes so damned long, I wonder why I even bother.” Nate replied with a grin. Benji stood up and glanced out the window. He saw a sparrow land on the scraggly apple tree out back and watched as it bobbed up and down on the thin branch that it perched upon. He grinned a moment, but it quickly faded. The backyard was a mess of thin beaten paths through the browning patches of grass and dusty large fallacies of bare earth. There were two aluminum sheds in the backyard, one white and the other green. The green one had a large dent in the right side from when Nate had kicked it trying to be cool in front of his friends. Some of the paint in the large sliding double doors was chipping off and rust covered the sides and tin roof. Cobwebs hung in large clusters in the half open doorway. The concrete pad flooring was cracked and full of dented pocks which resembled the face of the moon. A few metal shelves lined the walls and cases of them sat on the floor. They were covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. He shuddered. He didn’t like the way the sheds seemed to cling to whatever version of life they had in them. He hated them. He hated the memories they brought with them as he stared out the window at them silently. A buzzing sound from Nate’s game tore his vision mercilessly from them. He blinked and sighed, then glanced to his brother.
Nate glared hard at the old television which had gone to a blank screen from where the buzzing sound had come. “TV died on you again?” Benji asked him softly.
“Yeah, damn thing is such a piece of junk. I wish dad would let me get a new one.” Nate replied and crawled over to the foot of his bed and turned the television off. Nate shrugged when he glanced to his brother who stood near the window and then got up. He stretched a moment and yawned. “I was getting bored with the game anyway.” He said.
“Yeah, I know. I could tell. You looked as if you were half asleep playing it.” Benji replied, “You really should learn to take more breaks from playing your video games, Nate, otherwise you’ll end up with a brain of mush.” He grinned at his brother, but it quickly faded. He moved to the door and returned to his room. It was almost pitch black outside. Night had finally conquered the daylight for another twelve hours and the very first specks of stars were starting to poke through the rich black velvet of the night sky. Cars continued to hush past Benji’s window quietly. He plopped down on his bed and remained there until he was called to dinner by his mother. After having eaten dinner, he found himself again sitting on his bed, huddled in the dim light of the ceiling lamp as if trying to protect himself from the cold outside. He remained there locked in a fetus huddle, curled on the bed and rocking back and forth until he finally slipped into a deep slumber.
He woke to find himself standing on a grass knoll, starring out at a blood red crystalline sky. Bizarre animal noises could be heard from a dark purple steaming jungle that lay off to his right. A small foot path flowed like a snake out from the jungle and met his feet with a silent rush. He blinked a moment, not sure of what to do nor of where he was. He turned and faced the jungle head on a moment, starring hard into it. Something slipped from the shadows as if they had once been part of them, melting from them. It looked like it was spilt ink, but he couldn’t see at this distance. He took a step towards the something and it slithered away into the jungle once more, embracing the shadows silently; effortlessly. He raised an eyebrow. “What the hell’s going on?,” he thought, “where am I?” the words hissed in his mind loudly and echoed in the air around him.
“am I…am I…am I….” Whispered softly in his ears. He glanced around trying to find whoever it was that had spoken, but saw no one. He was alone in this strange world.
“I don’t want to be alone.” He said softly to himself as he walked towards the jungle.
“You’re alone. You’re alone. You’re alone.” The strange voice whispered back as he walked. He neared the jungle and it writhed with anticipation as if it were being burnt and eaten alive by some insect. He peered as far as he could into the jungle, only a couple of feet, but saw nothing. He couldn’t find whatever the something was that had slithered from the shadows only to retreat back into them again when he came near. He shivered. Then he took another step towards the jungle and it coiled and writhed as if begging him to enter. He was frightened but he stood his ground a moment.
“Any one out there?” he called into the jungle “Any one at all?”
“No…no…no…no…” a voice seemed to whisper on the light breeze that flowed from the jungle. The breeze was hot and sticky with poignant heartbreak and the stench of death. He wrinkled his nose at the scent. He looked around and picked up a large branch that lay near the path. It was only about five feet long and a couple inches thick, but if there was danger in this alien world, then at least he’d be prepared to fight. The branch was pocked with hundreds of tiny holes and what seemed like coarse black hairs were sprouting from them. A couple of white and red polka-dotted ants crawled this way and that on it and he swept them away. They hissed in protest but soon left. He took a deep breath, let it out in an audible sigh and then stepped into the shadows of the jungle silently. There was no sound at all inside the foliage of the jungle. It was as if everything had gone suddenly still at the presence of God himself. Nothing stirred, nothing moved. Time stood still here. Silently and forever watching those that entered this jungle but doing nothing to keep them out or let them know they weren’t alone.
Benji walked for what seemed like hours and then stopped. He wasn’t getting anywhere. In the whole time that he had entered this alien world, nothing changed once he entered the jungle. Not one leaf looked different. In fact, on a closer inspection, he saw that they were all the same. All of them were a deep blue hue and they were all perfectly square. There was no sign of rot or insect damage or anything on them. It was if they had been made of plastic. He looked quizzically at the leaves of the pants around him for a moment and then raised an eyebrow slightly. He wondered what was going on, but didn’t have an answer to that yet. Something rustled in the branches of a fern nearby and he jumped, not having expected it. He cautioned himself to be calm and then walked towards the direction of the movement. “Calm down, it’s just an animal…I hope.” Benji whispered to himself softly as he walked. “Remember your training.” He thought of his martial arts training briefly and pictured all the metals and trophies that he and his brother had won together in competitions which were kept in boxes in the garage. He shook his head clear of the thoughts and looked around. He was standing in a small patch of the forest with several ferns and other large trees surrounding him. He glanced to the left and then to the right but no one seemed to be around. He shrugged and then turned to go back the way he had come. Something was wrong. He could sense it.
He looked back the way he had come and panic crossed his face a brief moment. The path on which he had tread was gone. It had been swallowed the by the jungle as if it had never been. All that remained of it now was just a small dirt trail that protruded from under his feet a few inches and then faded away into grass and dead leaves. His breath quickened and caught in his throat. “Damn, he thought, “what the hell is going on? Why is the path gone? Where is every one? I’m alone now!”
“You’re all alone…you’re all alone….you’re all alone…” a voice in the shadows of the ferns hissed back to him like a broken leaking gas pipe. He looked around with tears stinging his eyes a moment, but he wiped them quickly away in anger and frustration.
“Where are you? Why don’t you show yourself?” he called into the jungle. He remained there on his patch of ground, breath choking in his throat and his heart thumping rapidly in his chest. A thin scowl appeared on his lips, but he banished it. He wasn’t ready to give into his anger just yet. He wanted to know what was going on first.
“Where are you?…Where are you?….Where are you?…” the voice hissed back at him in an echo. Benji closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be happening. He opened his eyes slowly and hoped he’d wake up from this sudden nightmare and find himself on his bed, comforted by the silent and purple-hued shadows of the night. It wasn’t the case. He was still trapped in this alien world. This just couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It was some twisted and sick trick his mind was playing on him. All he had to do was wake up, snap out of it, but he didn’t seem to have the strength to pull himself out. He fought back the stinging tears in his eyes, but found himself collapsing to the ground. He lay there in a huddled heap, shivering with fear. He rocked back and forth. A voice started to hiss in his mind, as he rocked, like a hundred leaking gas pipes all sprouting out their toxic fumes at once. He clamped his head in his hands and rocked a little faster.
“You’re alone and dead inside. No one wants you,” the voice whispered seductively. It was a bitter-sweet sensuous voice that lulled him into a deep peace and a heated anger at the same time. He wanted it to shut up and leave him alone and at the same time, he wanted it to keep talking to him. He wanted it to whisper of things that would make him feel comfortable and safe, but he only rocked a little harder and squeezed his eyes shut against it. It was no use. “Let me take you away. I’ll love you. I’ll want you. I’ll need you.” It whispered to him.
“You don’t want me or love me or need me, damn it!” Benji whispered hoarsely back. “You only want to hurt me. Leave me alone!”
“Oh, but I do love you. I only want you.” The voice hissed back harder and louder in his mind. “Let me take you.” Benji rocked harder still and he found himself cradled in a bed of dry moss and dead leaves. He kept his eyes shut, taking in the scent of the moss as it lay on the ground and reeked of decay. It was putrid, but better than listening to that damn voice in his head or wherever it was coming from. He cracked his eyes open a moment and saw only deep purple shadows. He relaxed a little. He could barely see, but the blurred images in front of him looked as if he were in his room with the covers of his bed pulled tightly around him. Did he dare risk fully awakening? He opened his eyes slowly and again found himself huddled in a mass on the floor of the jungle. He screamed. He wanted to run and hide, but there wasn’t anywhere he could go.
“Let me go!” he screamed in his mind, “Damn you! Let me go! Please!”
For a moment, it seemed as if the voice in his mind would finally let him go. It remained silent and a tear slid down his pale face and landed softly in the moss of the forest floor. He slowly unclamped his head from his hands and sat up, shuddering slightly. He looked around. Everything was the same still, nothing had changed. Movement caught his attention off to his right and he grabbed his branch and ran towards it. He only took a few steps before slamming hard into something. The foliage around him rocked back and forth and he reached out to steady himself on a tree. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t even feel the tree. It wasn’t even there. His hand lay on something that looked like forest and growth around him, but it wasn’t. It was hard and smooth. Not even a crack could be found along the surface as he ran his hand around it. It seemed to be round, but he wasn’t sure. He threw the branch he still clutched in his hand up and it bounced off the crystalline sky with a dull resounding thud. He then picked it up and held it out straight in front of him. It pressed hard into the surface of the foliage barrier. He then turned slightly to one side and ran, dragging the branch along with him. It slid around on the barrier like it was piece of ice on a wet surface. He rammed himself into the barrier several times before finding out that there was no exit and it was indeed round. It was a cage and he was the animal on display.
He shuddered softly, feeling another wave of panic hitting him, but he fought and beat it down. He wasn’t going to give up now. He was too scared to do so. He sat down in what he thought of as the center of his cage and waited for what felt like hours. He stared straight ahead of himself like he was a zombie. The trees and ferns near him rustled and the shadows slowly parted as something warped from them effortlessly, melting from them like dying icicles. It dripped slowly onto the forest floor and then pooled near Benji like ink that ran from the stopper of a bottle. The black substance reflected nothing as a beam of sunlight struck it slightly to the left. It merely just absorbed the light and continued to grow slowly. Then the dripping stopped and it remained there, silent and frozen. Benji looked at it quietly, just waiting for whatever would happen next. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. He was a plastic mannequin of himself, frozen and dead forever in the grip of this foreboding jungle. Then the black liquid wiggled a moment from the center out and it sprang upwards like someone had thrown a stone into the center of it. It shot towards Benji and engulfed him completely.
Everything was in total darkness. There was no ground, no sky, no up or down, nor left or right. Benji merely existed in nothingness and everything all at once. He could see clearly his own body, but everything else was bathed in an oil-slick pitch that oozed and bubbled with life and yet seemed so dead and cold. He reached out and tried to touch the blackness, but found he couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t smell or even taste. All he could do was see and so he closed his eyes, but he remained still seeing the pitch black of this endless void. He tried to call out and see if any one would answer him, but nothing happened. His words broke and fell apart at his lips’ edge and died then and there. He couldn’t even talk. He tried to think, but his thoughts melted away from him like water through bleach-white sand and beaded up again too far for him to hear them or comprehend them. The darkness was overwhelming him and he tried to stand and run, but got nowhere. He was stuck, frozen. He had become the mannequin that no one wanted, locked away into an endless void of nothingness and left to rot. Panic welled deep within him. There seemed to be no way out; no where to run and hide. The void bubbled and oozed into the shape of a humanoid creature in front of him and he closed his eyes, hoping it was all just a nightmare that he’d eventually wake from.
Inky blackness dripped from the finger tips of the creature as it reached out a thin black hand to Benji and caressed him gently on the cheek. The touch felt like molten iron and seared his flesh raw but it was cold as death and froze him to the core. He opened his mouth to scream in agony, but nothing came out. The sound bubbled out in a gurgle as if he were choking on his own blood. The creature took a step forward on its murky legs and left behind patches of oil slick as it lurched forward. It seemed human but also as if it were a cheap mechanical robot controlled by a child. Benji tried to back away from it, but it was useless. He was frozen in place by his fear. He took in a deep shuddering breath and tried his best to quell the rising fear inside of himself, but it did little to help him. He was shaking from head to toe and swallowed hard, acidly dry bile back down his throat. “What the hell is this thing?” He thought to himself.
The creature now stood just a few inches from him and he could see clearly that it did seem to be more human than an oil-slick denizen of hell. It had eyes that were deep set and putrid with waste and bile coughing out of them in great dollops of tears that ran down its slimy face and dripped to the ground. A small delicate nose protruded from under its eyes in a gently sweeping downward hill. A thin and jagged line creased inward under the nose to reveal a mouth of filth and decay, teeth that glistened a deep black hue and bubbled over with a foul smelling slime. Benji felt himself start to choke as if he were about to vomit, but he forced the abhorrent tasting bile back down and did his best to hold his ground even though he was still shaking from his unexplained trepidation of this creature. It reached a hand out to him and he shrank away from it like a mouse scurrying from the hunting hawk. A tear slid down his face as he faced the creature. “Leave me alone. Go away.” He whispered in a dry rasping voice. The creature stood there in place for what seemed like forever and then it suddenly lunged at him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Benji let out a terrified gasp, but it simply was frozen in his throat and never escaped his lips.
The hands of the bile-covered creature burnt into his clothing and sickening vomit like ooze bit deep into his soft, tender flesh. He squirmed and thrashed out as if he were a fish out of water. He cried and kicked back at the creature, but nothing seemed to work. His shoes merely left small pocks in the creatures’ flesh and didn’t seem to hurt or effect the creature in any way. Finally, exhausted and too drained to think clearly about fighting back, he went completely limp in the arms of the creature whom cradled him like a small infant holding him gently in his arms. The black void around him seemed to be spinning out of control and he closed his eyes tightly, shuddering as he tried to draw air into his aching and starving lungs. He was dying. He knew that now. This was Death come to claim his soul and try as he might, there was no point in warding off the inevitable. Every one dies at one point or another in time and Benji felt that there was really no more point in going on with his life. He simply wanted to rest and be at peace. Let Death do its’ job and get it over with. His eyes were glazed over with a thin sheeting of glassy clouds, murky and still. They had lost all their color. His face was ashen and sickly. His hands quivered neurotically, still trying to grasp something that would keep him alive, but they latched onto nothing.
It was over and he knew it. His mind wandered about the dark recesses of his brain like a lost child, exploring each tunnel and cavern with leisure and resting gently into each passing thought as it formed in the birthing of a child and then died away again in the aging of a human. He witnessed his birth and then his first step and his first tentative words. He heard his mother whisper soft blessings to him as he slept soundly in his crib. He watched as flowers bloomed in the summer and wilted in the fall. He felt clouds whispering past him in the deep velvet sky overhead. Everything seemed to sparkle anew as the bright orange-yellow sunlight touched it with a soft and delicate kiss. Dew droplets on the grass glittered like diamonds and he felt one on his finger and stared into it, watching silently as the world slipped away. He smiled softly. Then he let loose a soft giggle. This was peace, contentment, happiness. It was joy wrapped around him like a blanket and it was tangible and real. He was warm and fuzzy inside; cool and soft outside. The world blurred for a moment and then shot back into focus. Everything was still new and shinning. Nothing seemed to be in decay or in need of repair. There was the scent of happiness in the air and it wafted over him like a sweet butterfly in the mid-morning rays of the sun, glistening brightly like a childs’ eyes as it sees for the first time in its life.
He felt something inside of his very core tugging harshly on him, dragging him back to the reality of the alien world and forcing him to awaken slightly. He quivered and convulsed, a choking rasp escaping his thin lips. The creature lurched back toward the way it had come, sinking slowly into the ground, hands tightly fastened on him like a vice. He felt stretched and spread thin, much like butter that had been scraped over too much stale bread, bent and broken inside as if he were twisted fragments of metal. The creature was up to its knees in the ground, still holding Benji tightly, when he dropped him as he were so much dead weight into the empty void. He lay there, silent, dazed and frozen inside. Benji tried to regain control of his twitching body, but it didn’t seem to help. His paroxysms made him feel like he was outside of himself, watching his body die slowly and painfully, looking as if it were some type of android that had been severely electrocuted and its’ battery was just about to short out. His breath came in short, ragged strings and his eyes were glazed over. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth as if he were some type of rabid animal gone mad from infection.
A thin whispering laugh echoed in Benji’s ears slowly, hissing like pent up steam and threatening to tear the remaining shards of his fragile mind from the framework of their base. The creature reached out a hand to him as he sank further into the abyss of dark emptiness and stroked his cheek gently, almost soothingly; a mother trying to calm its’ sick child from the rages of the fever. The touch seared his flesh and scorched him to the bone and then beyond into his very soul. He wanted to scream out, but at the same time he enjoyed the pain it caused for him. He craved it and wanted more of it. He never wanted it to stop. A thin ragged breath rattled snake-like and dead in his throat, a gurgle at best for his voice to use to scream out. The hand of the creature left a thin oozing mark on his pale-tan flesh as it finally slipped into the underworld of the alien world and disappeared. Benji lay there in the void, neither seeming to be laying on the ground itself or floating in the air. He simply existed, shaking and shivering like a lost hungry puppy, starving for whatever imperfect life he could get his hands upon.
He was barely aware of the void seeming to spin slowly about him, drunk from the elixir of his own death and reincarnation back into the void of life. He swallowed hard, a burning in his throat as he did so, almost choking on his own saliva. Slowly his drifting shivering body came back to his control and he lost the glazed look in his eyes. A single tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek, cooling the burnt and seared flesh as it slipped off his cheek and shattered in a ripple somewhere below him. He felt the ground, if that was what he really was laying upon, ripple as the tear smashed into it like a small stone dropped into a placid lake. A new sensation slowly crept into him. It seemed foreign and feigned, but he didn’t try to fight it off. There didn’t seem to be any point in warding off whatever it was. His eye lids slowly became heavier and harder to remain open, they drooped downwards as if he were old and no longer ignited the sparks of fire inside of his heart and soul. His breathing slowly aged back to being normal, drawing in slow quiet breaths of air into his aching lungs. Even the pain he felt retreated from him, liquidating itself from him in a running torrent of emptiness.
He felt no emotions any more, he was just a shell; barren and crushed. Closing his eyes, he let the remaining ripples carry his mind off into the furthest of the shadows, comforted by the arms of a protective mother watching over her sleeping newborn carefully. He drifted for a time, aimless and wandering each ripple as it came and then letting it go like so much fuzz from a dandelion on a soft summer breeze as he took up the next ripple and rode it gently. Nothing sought to impress itself upon his mind, nothing tried to pry into his soul from the outside either. He was finally at peace and, here in this dead hollow empty black space, he could find his rest and be at peace within himself. The last thing he felt before shutting down completely was his mind shattering completely, as it finally became totally unglued from its matchstick framework. A soft sigh escaped his parched lips and wisped away from him in a silvery breath, breaking apart on the unseen currents of the drifting world.