A WALK INTO DARKNESS

 Evil has a way of attracting evil as Major Richard Blaine discovers, along with the lesson that it is never wise to wool-gather when others depend on you.

A WALK INTO DARKNESS

“The oldest and strongest emotionof mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of theunknown.”

- H. P. Lovecraft

 

My life was odd, even to me whohad experienced it day by day. You would think the strangeness of it would havebecome commonplace.

It had not.

I saw the jarring differencebetween my existence and that of all those around me.

 I, myself, was both observer and observable,and so a possible object of my own stunted awareness.

But there was the rub: stunted.

I was within the picture.The only true way to appreciate a painting was outside the frame of it.

There is another world.

 But it’s in this world  … or the doorway to that world is inthis reality. Wherever you are in this world, life is always and necessarilylived in detail.

Especially, the leaving of it …that is: dying.

“I am afraid,” said beside me in the near darkness, the glow of thetunnel’s walls having ebbed to mere will-o'-the-wisps of illumination.

“Ignis fatuus” theancient Roman legionnaires had called it. “Foolish” or Ghost Light.

I felt both foolish and almost aghost, slipping through this mouth of shadows.

We had been marching against thatstrange resistance for nearly an hour, the now mostly silent Sentient had toldme but moments before.

In literature, the will-o'-the-wispmetaphorically refers to a hope or goal that leads one on but is impossible toreach. In that sense, this meager illumination was fittingly called will-o'-the-wispby me.

Of where we were headed, Sentientwould only tell me: ‘Your destiny.’

That was frustratingly,maddeningly vague … as Sentient intended. I had gone against her wishes withMissy, and she was punishing me.

It was unknown the place anduncertain the time where death awaited you, so you had to expect death to findyou, every time, at every place.

‘Cheery thought’ mockedSentient, then slipped away before I could retort a fit response.

 There were things known and there were thingsunknown, and in between were the windows of perception.

‘Yours need cleaning’ cameSentient again. And once again, I could feel her leave my consciousness.

I felt the light hand of NurseReynolds on my shoulder from behind me.

“Being at ease with not knowingis crucial for answers to come to you, Major.”

As Helen Mayfair’s words had sooften done for me in New Orleans, the wind of peace filled the slumped sails ofmy confidence.

“At ease?” André scoffedincredulously. “I have not been so afraid since I was with that platoon of the45th Division attacking the small village of Venafro.”

“Where?” grunted Reese.

The ever-knowledgeableCloverfield said, “ A quaint little death-trap near Monte Cassino.”

“Oh, there,” drawled Sam Wilson.“Remind me never to visit.”

I hissed low to the photographer,“Have you seen any of the Spartans killed? Have the men on either side of youbeen shot and killed or maimed?”

“But there is this damnableskittering all about us!”

“What skittering?” I asked,suddenly feeling the fool for the thousandth time.

“It is all around us. If youcould wrench your mind from its aberration, you would hear it!”

“Uh,” gasped André.

Behind me, I heard Theo whisperharshly.

“That, Mr. Renowned Photographer,is the point of my knife. Speak like that again to Rick, and I will leave yourtwitching body here for whatever those beasties are out there.”

Amos grunted, “You think hehasn’t been hearing them like the rest of us?”

I hadn’t. I no longer feltfoolish but ashamed.

“Wh-What are they, Major?”shakily asked Taylor.

And since Evans hadn’t cuffed theman, I knew that Eric was more than a little unsettled himself and wanted toknow.

Sentient murmured the answer tome, and I just as soon not have known.

“Not beasties,” I whispered. “Theclosest thing they resemble are insects.”

“Insects!” howled Taylor. “Butthey sound huge!”

There was a sound of a cuff, andEvans said low,

 “Quiet, fool. This is why the Major didn’t tell us. He didn’twant you wailing and drawing them to us. Fear draws in the wolves, don’t youknow that?”

“W-Wolves? But the Major said ….”

Another sound of another cuff.

“When they were handing outbrains, you must have thought they said ‘Rain,’ and you wanted to stay dry.”

Evans whispered to me, “Major,why did you pick, Stew, anyway.”

“Because when he shoots, he nevermisses. Never.”

Out of the darkness, I felt NurseReynolds’ soft pat on my shoulder.

“That was just what he needed tohear … both of them.”

Well, I had done at least onething right. Maybe. Merde. Every victory of mine seemed to be a will-o'-the-wispof “maybe.”

Maybe.

For as we have candles to lightthe darkness of night, so my “maybe’s” were candles to keep the darkness aflamein my mind, my doubts.

The library at St. Marok’s hadtaught me one thing only: to wake up. To join by words, my thoughts, my mind tohuman culture, to think myself alive.

There is nothing that man fearsmore than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching out towardshim, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it.

 Man always tends to avoid physical contactwith anything strange.

I knew I wanted to avoid contactwith the skittering bodies that clicked all around us, the smell of somethingacidic and ammonia-like coming from them.

Reese growled, “Give me astraight-on firefight not something like this.”

Theo said low, 

“You should knowthis war by now. The enemy always changes. One day, it’s the lousy weather. Thenext, your commanding officers that don’t know their ass, ah, butt from a backscratcher. The day after that, it’s a cliff that can’t be climbed but has tobe. This is just another enemy, Reese. Deal with it.”

“But I can’t see this one,”muttered Taylor, who needed to see an enemy to shoot it.

“You can’t see a sniper,neither,” groused Mercer. “You just wait for your chance to spot him by hismessing up.”

I whispered, “And they may not bean enemy until we make them one.”

“Ant” Vincent huffed, “The waythey’re circling us can’t be good.”

“You’re right,” I nodded thoughhe couldn’t see me now that the light from the walls was nearly non-existent.

I continued, “I get the sensethat they are confused. Sentient is telling me that the devices all throughthis tunnel are … bringing us into and out of focus with their … dimension. Oneheartbeat they can … taste our sweat ….

“Aw, geez,” went Knight.

Theo snapped, “Don’t interruptthe Major.”

“The next, we … slip just farenough away from their … realm that they know they can’t touch us. This fadingand focusing has an erratic rhythm to it that they are trying to parse … tofigure out ….”

Dimitri said, “The right timingso’s as to attack us. Why aren’t we getting into a circle or something?”

Kent, a student of ancientwarfare, snorted, “That very act might trigger an attack from them.”

Theo added, 

“Can you see to shootthem? No, just hear them. We’re in a tunnel. We miss them with our shots, andthey will just ricochet off the walls and just as like hit us.”

Predictably, Taylor, our foreverquestioner, said, “Then, what do we do?”

Evans didn’t cuff the man, so Iknew that question had been on the tip of his tongue as well.

I had been loathe to tell theSpartans, for it would reveal a new enemy.

“We slow our marching ….”

“What?” yelped Taylor, whoimmediately got cuffed by Evans.

“Eric.” I whispered. “No moresudden moves.”

I spoke a little louder. 

“Strainyour eyes a bit, Spartans, and you’ll see a glimmer of light ahead of us,indicating a bend in this tunnel and our exit. No!! Keep it slow.”

The skittering around us got morefrantic as those creatures sensed possibly losing their prey. Merde. Thescratchings sounded so loud. Those things had to be huge.

“Prepare yourselves, Gentlemen. Ibelieve their … leader will be standing between us and the exit. Don’t panic athis silhouette. It will not be pretty. Let me and Sentient deal with him.”

Nurse Reynolds’ voice was barelya murmur, “What will you do?”

“Improvise. My whole damn lifehas been one long jazz gig. This is just another tune in it.”

Floyd husked, “This ain’t real.Can’t be. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in the real world.”

Link said, “I keep telling youguys. These are the end times.”

Vincent groaned, “Oh, give us abreak with all the Revelations talk.”

Link kept on, 

“This centurystarted with the whole damn world at war. Then, the stock market tanks. Themiddle of America became one huge bowl of flying dust. The world went back tobutchering itself. Now, this. End Times I tell you.”

‘Your Spartans have interestingperspectives of reality.’

‘Can you blame them?’

‘Yes. Your species is blind eventhose of you with functioning eyes. It is blind to its folly, to its ignorance,to its history, to the future that they will make for themselves. A future bornof self-loathing.’

‘You’re trying to make me not soafraid of being killed by whatever is ahead of us.’

‘It plans to do much worse thankill you, Blaine. It plans to feast on your soul.’

‘Oh, just that. You forget Iplayed chess with Mr. Morton.’

‘You still are and do not realizeit.’

To answer her, I said, 

“Link, theBible is filled with intriguing stories about complex and flawed human beingswho pondered immense moral questions and engaged in colossal clashes with evil.”

I unslung my Sig Saur Spear rifle. 

“Butif they remembered they were not alone, they made it to the finish line. Sowill we … if we do the same thing.”

I stepped away from the group andwalked to the towering, many tentacled monstrosity waiting for me … for mysoul.