The Dark Page 2

  The guy had a tramp stamp for crying out loud.

  “Annie, for the love of God, do you have to prance around here like that all the time? Put some clothes on or—”

  John’s scream cut her off.

  Chapter 2

  Walter reached in the cooler beside his chair and grimaced when his hand found only melting ice and frigid water.

  His chair felt particularly comfortable and he didn’t want to get up for another beer – that’s what piss breaks were for. He scratched his month-old beard and mulled over the most important decision of his day. A commercial ran on the small television set before him, so he figured this was as good a time as any.

  The boat lolled a bit as he stood up, making him wonder just how drunk he’d already become. Though he’d been living on the small craft for over four weeks, he still had trouble with his sea legs. It didn’t help that he’d been loaded every single day since he’d purchased it, but he didn’t see a point in quibbling with himself over details.

  Only the booze had kept him from jumping overboard and sinking into the Chesapeake Bay. Alcohol exacerbated most people’s depression, but it had a calming effect on Walter. His angst and desperation had him on the verge of suicide multiple times over the last three months and only isolation and drunkenness kept him from taking that final step.

  His wife had died in a car accident on her way home from picking up his favorite meal. It was his birthday and she bought him the same thing every year – fried pierogies. Lisa had been laughing at him for twenty years about how much of a simpleton he was and his favorite food only solidified it for her. Yet she always brought some home on special occasions.

  Their daughter, Melissa, begged him to move in with her after Lisa’s sudden death. Melissa could tell that he was on the verge of giving up. He’d tried his best to hide it from her, but had failed miserably. Every time they were together he could feel her examining him, seeing right through the façade he wore. Knowing how unfair it would be to take both of her parents from her gave him pause – barely.

  When you live with someone for four decades, loving them unconditionally the entire time, it felt impossible to continue on without them.

  In the end he’d decided to sell their house and buy a small, one-bedroom boat. Walter couldn’t bring himself to sleep in their bed or eat in their kitchen after she was gone. Everything in their home reminded him of her.

  Memories of their life together consumed him. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her face. Her passion. Her smile.

  They’d fought often – their zest for life bringing them both joy and frustration. But it worked for them. Their arguments always ended in reconciliation and then with make-up sex. Oh how he loved the make-up sex.

  Now he floated on the Chesapeake Bay for most of the day, occasionally fishing and always drinking.

  The isolation had done him some good. He still hated life, but his every thought didn’t revolve around ending it all. Sleep hadn’t become a normal part of his daily routine yet, but alcohol-induced comas were getting him by. Just getting a few hours of shuteye every day kept him from stepping overboard.

  All of that wasn’t to say that Walter didn’t realize his life was a steaming pile of shit – he did. Sitting on a boat in the disgustingly polluted bay, blasted out of his skull for eighteen hours a day, didn’t make for the most rewarding of lives. But he was still alive and he figured that counted for something. His daughter wasn’t particularly proud of him, but she hadn’t been treating him with kid gloves quite as much the last few times he’d spoken to her.

  Walter pushed himself out of his chair and stumbled toward the open door of the boat. A gust of salt water wind blew up his hair, which had grown long and gray over the past few months, making him chuckle as he wondered if he looked like a homeless model. He walked to the back of the boat, standing at the end and undoing his fly. The lights from the city of Aberdeen, Maryland shined across the bay in front of him as he pissed into the water, trying to keep his balance as the boat rocked back and forth.

  Prior to the death of his beloved, Walter had been a professor at Towson University. He taught Communications Media courses and ran the college’s television station. It was a life that he enjoyed. Combing through hours of shitty student films and god awful attempts at ‘art’ with Lisa had been a weekly laugh shared between them.

  He’d resigned after her passing, leaving his colleagues stunned. For weeks they’d tried to reason with him, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around teaching again. Everything in his life tasted bland without Lisa’s brand of seasoning. Grading papers and staring at horny, hungover students didn’t hold water with him anymore. Tenure be damned.

  Walter smirked at his loss of life and prestige as he drunkenly urinated off the back of his boat.

  How the mighty have fallen.

  The stars above him were brighter than usual, uninhibited by cloud cover. He glanced at them, remembering the last time he’d sat with his wife on their back patio, sipping wine. A lump formed in his throat at the memory and he swallowed hard, forcing it back down. His emotions were running the full gamut tonight and he hated every second of it.

  This is why he drank.

  As he pulled up his fly, cursing himself for letting his mind wander beyond television and alcohol, he spotted something odd coming from the shore. He couldn’t tell because of how dark the night had become, but he was fairly certain that he was looking at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the military post.

  The lights at the installation began winking out, disappearing in a circular pattern which exploded outward.

  “Dumb assed government can’t even keep their power on.”

  He opened a cooler that sat in the corner and pulled out a six pack. Because he wasn’t sure how long he planned on living like a nomad, he’d been trying to stretch his budget as far as he could, which meant buying the cheapest swill he could find. This new stuff came in a grey can that didn’t even have a logo on it. He tore one free from the plastic rings that held the cans together, placing the rest on the deck between his feet.

  While popping the tab he turned back to land, watching the post as more of the lights went out.

  “Morons.”

  Walter had served in the military when he was younger and considered it a soul-sucking experience. Some people thrived in that atmosphere, but he wasn’t one of them. He’d only been in four years, but he’d hated every single second of it. Living so close to the post didn’t help. The constant drone of helicopters and Humvees had always annoyed him.

  Lisa called it the ‘sound of freedom’ just to annoy him. She’d grown up in the area and had long grown accustomed to the annoyance.

  The power outage extended beyond where Walter thought the border of the government property was, moving into the surrounding city of Aberdeen.

  “That’s gonna piss some people off.”

  Stars winked out above the post.

  Walter stopped drinking his beer in mid swig, his brow furrowing. “What the hell?”

  The rest of the city went dark at once. The electric grid running the city must have had an enormous meltdown. The stars continued disappearing – blinking out as if a blanket was being dragged across the sky.

  Walter looked behind him, inspecting the sky over the bay. Everything appeared normal to the east. He turned back to the city and dropped his beer to the deck of the boat, sending the cool suds across the surface.

  Explosions rocked the city, sending fireballs into the darkening sky. Dozens of headlights that were moving in the regular patterns of traffic suddenly veered in all directions. Several disappeared while others crashed into unseen objects.

  He was rooted in place, entranced at the chaos spreading out before him, waiting for the wails of sirens and fire whistles. None came. He cocked his head, angling his ear toward the coast, listening, waiting. A few more crashes bounced over the water to him, followed by silence.

  The dearth of sound disturbed him.

  He’d n
ever heard such absolute quiet before.

  After so many catastrophic events, one after another, there should have been pandemonium in the streets, yet he saw and heard nothing.

  Only the television squawked behind him.

  Where were the firefighters, the EMTs?

  The blackness that covered the city spread over the water, blotting out more stars, moving toward Walter and his boat.

  “Uhhh...”

  He took an instinctive step backward, unsure of what to do. He thought about running inside the boat, but he didn’t even know what he was dealing with, let alone whether the wood and glass walls of the vessel would protect him. Holding his ground, he watched, enthralled at the inky black that flooded the area before him.

  The stars halfway above the bay disappeared in a matter of seconds.

  Dim reflections of light from the shore, always visible on the small waves of the water, were gone.

  Walter felt as if he were staring into an abyss.

  The darkness washed over him. He spun around, feeling his vision swirl from the booze, righting himself as he faced the cabin. The lights inside the boat were still on, the television blaring, bathing him in a low light. He could see the deck at his feet, the inside of the boat, and a few feet around it.

  A faint whiff of rot touched his nostrils.

  “What. The. Fu—”

  “Daddy.”

  Walter went rigid, his muscles locked.

  How could someone be out here, in the middle of night, able to sneak up on him as he stood on his boat?

  “Daddy, turn out the light.”

  He recognized the voice – it was his daughter’s.

  “Melissa?”

  “Turn off the light and come here.”

  Walter looked into the cabin, trying to locate Melissa. The room was empty. He stepped forward, walking down the handful of steps that led inside, trying to wrap his head around the situation.

  “Melissa? Where are you? How—”

  He spotted her then, standing at the front of the boat. She wore flannel pajamas and no shoes. She was barely visible from the light in the cabin, staring through the windshield at him. Her head hung low, angling toward her father as she looked down at him.

  “What are you doing? How the hell did you get out here?”

  Walter’s head swam in confusion. Spotting a giraffe on his boat would have made more sense to him at that moment. He stood before the windshield with his mouth agape.

  “Turn out the light, Daddy.”

  “Come in here, Melissa. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Melissa lived in Aberdeen and she absolutely hated the water. She had been less than enthusiastic when Walter told her that he’d sold his home and purchased a boat. They argued over it for awhile before she finally relented. She never came to visit, always making him come ashore to see her.

  Seeing her wearing her pajamas on the bow of his boat as a bizarre cloud of darkness washed over it perplexed him beyond words. He had a million questions to ask her, but didn’t know where to start. And why did she keep asking him to turn out the light?

  “Where are your clothes?”

  “Just turn everything off for a moment so I can tell you.” She waited, watching him intently.

  Walter couldn’t figure out the expression on her face. Her mouth and forehead were smooth, but her eyes were angry. She didn’t appear to want to come inside for whatever reason.

  “Do you know what’s going on in the city?”

  “Yes. Come out here and I’ll explain everything.”

  Walter glanced back to the shore, trying to understand what was happening, angry at his alcohol-addled mind. He was having trouble thinking clearly. Nothing made sense – he could see that despite his inebriation.

  He turned toward the door, heading to the front of the ship to try and coax her inside.

  “Turn off the lights first.”

  Walter stopped in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. Why was she so insistent about the lights? With the black surrounding them, they wouldn’t be able to see anything without the cabin lights. Even through his beer goggles, he could see the lack of logic in her request.

  “I’m going to turn on the deck lights.”

  “No!”

  An explosion behind Walter sent him reeling into the cabin, tumbling over his chair and falling to the floor. His aging hip threatened to break as he crashed against the wood beneath him, agonizing waves of pain running down his leg. He rolled to his back, clutching at his hip, touching the joint with his hands to see if it had broken.

  His leg felt stiff and it hurt like hell when he moved it, but it still had a full range of motion. Grabbing the arm of his recliner, which was bolted to the floor, Walter pulled himself up, grimacing at the creaking coming from his knees. He looked out the back window of the cabin, watching as a massive fireball rose in the air.

  The fire took on a mushroom shape as it grew, illuminating a large area around it. It was over the military post.

  “Jesus.”

  Walter hoped that hadn’t been some kind of bomb – it certainly appeared to be. Aberdeen Proving Ground was where the military tested its weapons. Living by the post had always been an interesting experience. They tested ordinance all day, rocking nearby homes with explosions constantly. The first time he heard one of their bombs being tested, Walter had ducked under his desk, thinking something had gone terribly wrong.

  As he watched the mushroom cloud rising into the sky, he wondered if the power outage and the explosion were connected.

  The fire allowed him see the water and boat around him for several seconds as it burned high into the sky. He moved through the door and looked back for Melissa, wanting to get some answers.

  Gone.

  “Melissa?”

  Fearing she’d fallen overboard, he ran, as best he could, to the bow and checked over the edge. He didn’t see her anywhere in the water as he searched frantically through the dark below.

  Then he noticed that there wasn’t another boat or dingy around.

  Melissa had never been a strong swimmer and he was at least three quarters of a mile from the shore, so she couldn’t have swam out to him. Her clothing hadn’t been wet either. Now that he thought about it, Walter hadn’t heard a motor approach him as he sat in the cabin and watched television.

  He sat back, watching the water, trying to clear his mind. The fireball above the post died down, the darkness around him closing in. He looked back to the sky, frowning at the lack of stars. The other side of the bay had also gone dark.

  Walter slapped himself in the face.

  He’d passed out in his chair multiple times over the past month and thought maybe he’d done it again. The pain in his cheek convinced him otherwise.

  “OK, what the hell is going on?”

  He examined the dark that encompassed him, demanding answers that he knew wouldn’t come.

  Melissa wasn’t there.

  Maybe she never had been.

  Walter went back to the cabin, kicking empty cans out of the way, and stared at the television set. Nothing but snow. He had a small satellite dish on his boat that let him watch TV, but it had lost its signal. Whatever blotted out the stars must have degraded the signal as well.

  The same applied to his cell phone.

  He considered the fire burning on the post. Though he had no idea what had happened on the post, the city, or around his boat, he knew that he had to check on his child. The explosion on the post, and the smaller ones he’d seen in Aberdeen, convinced him that she might be in danger. He tried not to think about her appearance outside the cabin.

  Something was very wrong here and he intended to keep his daughter safe. Walter switched off the television and turned on all of the lights his boat had, doing his best to brighten the area around him as much as possible. He tore open a loaf of bread propped by his chair and ate a slice in two bites. He needed to sober up as fast as possible.

  After turning on the engine, Wal
ter spun the wheel, heading back to shore. For the first time since his wife’s death he had a purpose. His daughter needed him and he would do everything he could to be there for her.

  Chapter 3

  Aaron put his beat up Mercury Sable into park and peered through the windshield.

  The enormous, white, two-story house had a light on in almost every room. He could see at least three people walking by various windows. Aaron didn’t pay much attention to them as he was trying to read the numbers beside the front door, hoping he had the right house. He had three more deliveries to make in the next twenty minutes and he didn’t have time to waste.

  The headlights of his car pointed at the front porch, reflecting off the door and glass. Someone moved a curtain in the window on the right, peering back at Aaron.

  He was used to this kind of thing. When people ordered pizza they often waited by the door, anxious to start eating. He knew that he’d found the right place so he pulled a box out of the warming bag in the passenger seat and stepped out of the car.

  The Sable continued running, the lights still on, guiding his way up the driveway. One of Aaron’s coworkers had been robbed a couple of weeks ago when he knocked on someone’s door while trying to deliver some food. No lights were on at the house and the thief came up behind him, hitting him in the head with a hard object. The douche had taken all of the money on Aaron’s friend and had even stolen the pizza and breadsticks he’d meant to deliver.

  Since that day Aaron always pointed his headlights at the front door and kept his car running, just in case. He was only sixteen and built like a beanpole. If someone jumped him, he’d get his ass kicked. He didn’t have any delusions about his toughness and he had no intention of getting beat up over twenty bucks and a shitty pizza.

  He reached back into his open window and grabbed his cap off the dash, shoving it on his head. The hat was red and had a stupid fox on it that served as his company’s mascot. The thing always made people laugh at him when he handed over the pizza. The day he quit to go to college he planned on burning the damn thing and pissing on its ashes. That would be a good day.