The Prevailing Darkness
Chapter One
The silhouetted shape was the only thing moving in the calm of the night. It crouched low on the rooftop, prowling like a cat. But it was far too big to be a cat, or even a possum. It moved in such a manner than suggested it wasn’t human, yet seemed to retain a humanoid shape. I watched it curiously, peering across the street through the grimy window with narrowed blue eyes. That was Janice’s house. Janice - with the cats. Nice old lady. There was no way she could be on her roof, so who was it?
The figure straightened suddenly, like a deer caught in headlights, and dropped from the roof top, swallowed whole by the blackness below.
Looking back to watch The Simpsons, I slouched down in the sagging couch. A dark form swept away my view of the TV. I would never admit it, but I jumped a little, still spooked from the shape on the roof. However the triangular shape looming over me was not a crazy cat lady, or a mysterious roof-lurking creature - it was my step dad's head.
“Move,” Russell ordered.
A scowl darkened my face. “Screw you, I was here first.”
“I was born first, so move your skinny butt.”
“Just do it, Alexis,” Mum sighed beside me. “He’s had a long day at work.”
“Well I’ve had a long day at school,” I muttered, getting up all the same. It wasn’t something worth fighting over.
On the way to my bedroom, my bare elbow brushed something smooth and cold. I looked back just in time to see the large glass jar wobble, then fall. It plunged to the wooden floor, shattering into a million shards. An explosion of silver coins rolled in every direction, glinting in the flickering light of the TV down the corridor. My eyes slid closed, and I waited. The tinkling of coins finally dissolved into silence.
That was mum and Russell’s savings for their honeymoon. They’d gotten married just last year after only knowing each other for a few months and he’d promised to take her to Langkawi. There had to be over a hundred dollars in there, and now it was all over the floor, covered in broken glass.
The moment of shocked silence ended abruptly. “You idiot!” Russell shrieked, pushing himself to his feet. “Look what you’ve done! That was my honeymoon savings!”
“Really?” I snapped, packing in as much sarcasm as humanly possible. “Chill out, it was an accident.” ‘Don’t tell me to chill out...’ I could already see the words bubbling to his frothy lips.
“Don’t tell me to chill out! Get this cleaned up, now!” A purple vein bulged on his temple.
“I was just about to!” Careful to avoid the bits of glass, I picked my way to the kitchen and grabbed the dust pan and brush.
“Watch out, the freak’ll probably try stealing some of that cash for herself,” my twin sister, Ingrid, spat as she emerged from her bedroom down the corridor. People think having an identical twin is cool. Well it’s not. You want one? Have mine.
“Drop dead,” I muttered. Glancing up, I saw myself. Only it wasn’t me; it was an evil bitch monster from hell.
“That isn’t very polite,” It said, looming over me with her hands placed on her curvy hips.
I could think of a whole load of other stuff to say that wasn’t polite, but instead of digging my own grave I resorted to flicking her off and grudgingly moving aside so she could pass. Ingrid squeezed onto the couch between Mum and Russell, snuggling up to them both. Wasn’t fourteen a little too old for getting cuddles from Mummy? Mum always zoned out when we started arguing, she went to her happy place, a world where everything was perfect and no one was at each other’s throats.
Russell hauled his butt off the tattered old couch and trundled over. Kneeling down, he began plucking the shiny coins of the ground, one by one. For a moment I thought he was actually helping. But then he moved closer and crushed my foot with his own size eleven.
“Remember,” he said quietly, “you’re not too old to for me to give you the belt, so don’t you dare take any of that money.” He straightened up, sprinkling the coins he’d picked up back over the ground. With each silver piece that thunked to the floor, my vision got redder and redder. “You missed a spot,” he grinned, beginning to move away, and that was the last straw for me. Who did he think he was? Who the hell did he think he was?
“Do it yourself!” I threw the dust pan and brush down, making the mess of shattered glass more wide spread than before. I leapt it in a single bound and headed for the front door. I would not be in the same house as a man who threatened to hit fourteen year old girls.
“Don’t you dare walk out!” Russell shouted, growing hoarse. “Come here now, missy! If you go out that door, don’t even think about coming back!”
“Why the hell would I want to?” I screamed back, the door already opening beneath my hand.
Three short, quick steps and the door slammed shut behind me. The window pane rattled, ringing into the empty night. Then I heard murmuring. By the pale light of the moon and the stars, I could make out the familiar figures of teenage guys sitting on their BMX’s on the next driveway over. I knew all of them, even used to hang with them – before they hit puberty and turned into total jerks.
I headed down the driveway, half-hoping they hadn’t heard the fight and spare me the embarrassment of being kicked out. Kicked out... I wasn’t really, was I? A charge surged in my blood, thumped behind my ears, and I thought, this could be the turning point. But for better or worse?
“Hey, Alexis,” Ollie called out to me. “Where you heading?”
“Dude, what are you doing?” I heard Phil hiss faintly. Either I had exceptionally good hearing or I was meant to hear his whispered protest.
Ollie nudged Phil with his scrawny elbow, eyes still fixed on me as I turned to saunter away. “Wanna hang with us?”
“Yeah,” Phil put on a grin. “Ollie wants to get busy.” He thrust his pelvis at me and he and Ollie laughed and slapped hands.
Get a life, Phil. I didn’t say it; nothing could stop me till I was far, far away from the place I could no longer call my home. On the way down the path through the bush by my house I broke into a sprint. Running was my escape. The cool night air wiped my mind blank, and there was nothing but my legs pounding into the ground.
Russell had told me not to come back, so I wouldn’t. I’d always wanted to do it – run away – and this was my chance. I tilted my head forward and ran harder, further into the bush, into the darkness. Nothing can stop me now.
The bush was my favourite place. Tall gum trees, so well adapted to the current drought, passed in blurs of grey-brown and dull green in the starlight. There weren’t any low scrubs to obstruct me, just a few fallen branches which I easily jumped. Nothing can stop me now. I wasn’t wearing shoes but I did this often so the soles of my feet were thick. I barely felt the sticks trying to pierce the skin. Nothing can stop me now. My phone vibrated in the pocket of my cargo shorts but I ignored it. Nothing can stop me now.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. Something that didn’t belong in this natural environment spoilt only by the grey snaking footpath which I studiously avoided. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably. The noisy cicadas rose in an ongoing chorus, drowning out all logical thought. Roosting kookaburras laughed at my discomfort.
I slowed to a walk before stopping completely, a pulse pounding behind my ears. Out of breath from the run, I slowly turned around, squinting through the darkness. Then I saw her.
She stood on an enormous fallen log, wider than any man could stretch their arms across. It acted as a bridge across a deep rocky waterway that had dried up long ago. Her short black hair gave her a boyish appearance, but she was stark naked - a big give away that she was female. She was staring straight at me; my pulse was suddenly jumping in my throat.
I gulped. I had never been this unsettled in my life. “Are you ok?” As I closed the gap between us I could see the girl was about my age, and very pretty, with olive skin that I would kill for and grey eyes framed with dark, thick lashes.
“It’s gonna happen,” she said, and her voice was emotionless like her face. Her steady grey eyes burned into mine.
Again I gulped, fighting to keep my voice steady. “What is?”
She cackled a laugh, but stopped abruptly. “You’re gonna be like me.”
Then she jumped.
“Don’t!” I yelled. My arms instinctively reached out to her but I turned my face away and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see how the girl’s shins would splinter and her ankles snap when she hit the ground. Except I didn’t hear a crunch or a cry of pain. I didn’t hear anything but the bugs chirping away – maybe I heard some leaves rustle, maybe I imagined it.
Arms lowering, I peeked back at the log, letting my eyes trace down its craggy surface, down the rocks underneath, down, down, down to the place where the girl should lie dead – or at least screaming in pain. But the girl wasn’t there. It was a wolf instead. The beast’s sleek black fur gleamed in the moonlight. It stood solidly on the leaf strewn ground, watching me calmly with the same grey eyes as the girls.
In movies, this was the part when the helpless victim would scream her head off before getting eaten alive. Well, this wasn’t a movie. This was real life and in real life you don’t have time to even think about filling your lungs to scream. In real life you can’t hear anything but your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. My feet grew hot as blood rushed there so I could run, but my legs were blocks of concrete and I just staggered backwards before hitting a thin, shaky tree which showered me with dry, crackly leaves.
The wolf raised its chin with a sense of superiority. Its black fur ruffled as it’s chest expanded with air, then a wailing bark filled the night. It was brief, like a burst of laughter. The amusement in the wolf’s eyes didn’t vanish as it turned and darted through in trees in the opposite direction.
It took me a moment to realize I was still just sitting on the ground, sprinkled with leaves with a branch digging painfully into my back. The wolf was gone. Ran away. Get up. I scrambled to my feet and staggered through the bush in the direction of the footpath. Shapes moved in the darkness of the trees, just my mind playing on my deepest insecurities. There is nothing there. A branch snapped; I bolted.
Dotted every three hundred meters along the path were pools of orange light emitting from fancy green lampposts. The darkness between them was terrifying, ominous. I was running home, where else could I go? My muscles screamed in protest as I sprinted the final hill. The air caught in my throat with my every breath. A rock twisted under my bare foot. My ankle gave out and I felt myself falling.
“Oww,” I groaned on my hands and knees, palms already wet with blood. My nose, inches from the ground, filled with the smell of dry dirt and dead ants.
“Y’all righ’, dear?” a man called. I glanced behind me to see a pale figure gliding closer through the darkness.
“Yeah,” I panted, my voice sounding gravelly.
“Alexis!”
“Alexis, are you ok?”
Leaves rustled and twigs snapped beneath spinning bike wheels. Two BMX’s pulled up beside me, a third sat at the top of the hill. I looked back to the man, but he was nowhere in sight.
“We saw you fall,” Phillip grinned, sweeping his black fringe out of his eyes. “Fail.”
“Epic stack,” Ollie agreed.
I pushed myself to my feet, trying not to let them see me wince.
“Push her over again, Phil!” Kieran called from atop the hill.
My hands ached too much to give him the finger; instead I wiped the sweat off my forehead, leaving a smear of blood.
“You all good?” asked Ollie, reaching forward.
Before I could answer my phone began ringing. I didn’t check the caller ID, just answered for a distraction. “Yeah?”
“Oh, honey I was worried,” ironically my mother’s voice held no panic. “Come home, Russell’s calmed down now. It’s not safe out the-”
I hung up on her, but couldn’t hold back the flood of relief. Told ya so, said a voice in my head. Told ya you weren’t kicked out.
Ollie and Kieran helped me limp home while Phil coasted on his BMX, jeering from a distance. Questions buzzed around my mind, hyperactive flies in search of escape. What had just happened? What the hell happened? The girl – did she turn into a wolf? Impossible. Am I crazy? Do crazy people know they’re crazy? And what did she mean ‘you’re gonna be like me’?
As I fumbled with the creaky latch on the side gate, my phone rang again. My best friend’s name flashed on the screen, and I answered in a rush.
“Zeda,” I gasped. “You’re never gonna believe what just happened...”
But did it happen?
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