Out of the Darkness

Raindrops bleed into his eyes as he runs along the deserted road, his bare feet slopping through its muddy surface. Got to get off this road. Get in the forest. He turns, hops the water filled ditch and races toward the trees. The earth shakes with thunder. Streaks of electricity shock the clouds and they cry out spitting drops of water so thick and fast it makes it impossible to see. Still, he races on, chasing freedom from the demons haunting his very soul.

He stops at the forests edge, half bending with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. He wipes his brow with the back of his hand smearing the wetness above his eyes across his forehead. Don’t stop. Got to keep going. Hide in the darkness of the forest.

The sound of voices crash the silence of the storm. Murderer! He takes off running, slapping at the tree limbs as he passes. Which way. 

The forest is dark, wet, and cold and everywhere he looks is the same. He wipes his eyes and sees something like a path to his left. It seems to run between the trees. That way. Follow the path. He takes off again stopping

dead in his tracks when the smell of smoke fills his nostrils. Must be a camp nearby. Got to be careful.

Murderer! He throws his hands over his ears. I’m coming for you!

He creeps down the path. Watch out. Don’t know what’s out here, or who. 

“Who the hell are you and what are doing sneaking up on someone?”

He turns around and comes face to face with a small, old man pointing a shotgun. 

“Running.”

. “Whatcha mean running? Running from what?”

“Running from them.”

“Who’s them.”

“Don’t you hear them?” 

“Hear who? I don’t hear nothing.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t hear the voices?”

The old man motions toward the tent with the shotgun. “Let’s go, fella.”

They walk slowly into the campsite. “Sit down. Over there on one of them crates.”

He sits down, his eyes exploring the surroundings, searching for a way out while keeping a watch on the old man and the gun. “I’m Glen, Glen Hollins.

“I know who you are. You’re that fella lost his wife in that car accident a while back.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m just camping. I don’t live out here.” He throws a towel at Glen. “Why ya running?”

Glen wiped the towel over his head, his face, and up and down his arms. “Can’t live with myself.”

The old man laid the shotgun against a tree beside his chair. He grabbed two tin cups filling them from a coffee pot sitting among the now smoldering fire. “Care for some? Ain’t hot, but still warm.”

Glen moves closer taking the cup from the old man’s hand.

“The way I heard it some fella plowed into you at the Mission Cross road.”

. Glen shook his head in acknowledgment then raised his head and stared hard into the old man’s eyes. “But that’s not all of the story.”

“Care to talk about it?”

“What’s the point?”

They sat in silence for what seemed like hours to Glen. “What did you say your name was?”

“Simmons. My name is Simmons.”

When the old man said nothing more Glen stood up and sat the tin cup on the box. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said as he started walking away.

“Never found the person that hit you, did they?”

Glen sat back down, put his head in his hands and shook his head.

“So why are you running.”

“I told you. I can’t live like this.”

The voices yelled again, “Murderer.” 

Glen covered his ears. “Stop it, stop it!” 

A warm, strong hand squeezed his shoulder and when he looked up he saw the old man with a gentle smile standing beside him. “What’s the rest of the story?” he asked returning to his chair.

“We had been to an afternoon cookout party with a group of our friends. I had too many beers. I was drunk. Marcy, my pregnant wife pleaded with me to let her drive us home, but I didn’t listen.”

“So you blame yourself for the death of your wife and unborn child.”

Glen hung his head as the pain and anguish of the memory forced its way to the surface of his mind. “I’ll kill the man that hit us if I ever find him.”

“Then go ahead and do it. He’s right over there.”

Glen raised his head and stared at a man standing beside the tent. He was about his same age, average build, with dark brown hair. He was just another guy, and yet he wasn’t. He was the man who took his wife and unborn child from him and then ran, disappearing without a trace. 

Glen jumped from his chair, grabbed a metal tent rod laying on the ground and walked over to the man. “You son of a bitch.” He swung the rod with all the force he could muster hitting him in side, then hit him in the knee knocking him to the ground. He climbed on top of the broken man and started throwing punch after punch until the bloody man stopped moving. He reached over pulling a large rock from the fire pit. “I’m going to kill you, you bastard.” He raised the rock above his head ready to take a life, a worthless life to him, when he again felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

“If taking this man’s life will alter what has been, then do it. If it won’t, then walk away. Either way, leave you rage here and now. You can’t run forever. It’s time to leave the darkness behind.”

The sky lit up and the thunder shook so hard the house trembled. Glen jumped up and looked around. Everything was familiar. He wasn’t in the forest. He was in his bed. He was home.

There was someone knocking on his door. Beating on it was more the sound. He looked at the clock on the corner table. 2:30 a.m.. Who the hell can that be.

He opened the door to see a man, and average guy, dripping wet from the rain. “I’m the man you’ve been looking for. I was driving the truck that hit you on Mission Road.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to turn myself in, but I needed to see you first. To apologize.”

Glen asked him why he was doing this now, after all this time. The man said he was sitting in a bar when an old man approached him. He said his name was Simmons. He sat down and they began talking about that tragic day and how he couldn’t live with himself anymore. The man told him he needed to do the right thing so he couldngo on living. He needed to come out of the darkness.

Glen didn’t let him in. He didn’t even get his name. He just slowly closed the door and watched through the window as the man got in his car and drove away. 

The man did indeed turn himself in to the police. Glen heard about it from the police investigator and later on the news. He learned that the man had lost his wife to cancer earlier the same day of the tragedy. He had stopped at a bar trying to drown the pain from losing her and was trying to get home to his now empty house. He too was drunk that day, but he was also lost in pain, and suffering when he ran the stop sign on the rural road. It wasn’t an excuse. It was just a man trying to run away from the demons in his mind.

Glen showed up at the courthouse the day of the man’s sentence hearing and asked the judge for leniency. The man had suffered enough, he’d said. And nothing they could do would change what had happened. He was sentenced to five years in prison and five years probation. 

Glen went to visit the man in prison every two weeks of his confinement and he was there to pick him up on the day of his release. They shook hands without saying a word, got in the car and drove off.

Somewhere in this tragedy, the two men formed a bond of sorts. Both had lost the most important people in their lives all due to a drink. Both had met a man named Simmons who had the power to influence their decisions. And both men had come out of the darkness and finally stopped running.