The Dark Comes Closer

Riley stares at her mother as the morning officially begins. Some people would signal these things with an alarm clock while others maybe await its arrival with the passage of the sun. Riley waits for her mother to plug in the coffee maker and it doesn’t officially count until her mother receives the daily shock from the dilapidated outlet. Dennis says that exposure to that much electricity is going to kill her one of these days but Riley’s seen people in this town go through worse and still walk away alive. Why, they say old man Tuner’s been struck by lightening three times which is way worse than a little shock in the morning as far as Riley’s concerned.

Either way, it’s how she knows the day is going to start. Sure enough, her mother pulls the old machine out of its place and mumbles as she looks around for that red bucket labelled simply ‘beans’. Nothing fancy or anything more than simple words etched on in black Sharpie. It was written on long before Riley had learned what letters even were. Her mom says she used to want to eat those sharpies because of their smell.

There’s the zap she’s expecting and her mother waves her now burned hand in the air like that will take the sting away and share it with the kitchen at large. “Bastard!” her mother spits out like a hissing pole cat and Riley smiles because the morning has officially begun.

“Think it’s gonna rain mama?” she asks and slides into the kitchen to stand beside her mother who smells like coffee and cinnamon.

“Rain?” her mother asks, burned hand dropping as she forgets the sting and peers out the window to stare at the growing sunset. In the distance is a spot of darkness that looks like gathering clouds. The making of a nasty storm.

Riley is excited for the future blanket forts and the sound of rain lashing onto their roofs. Her mother heaves a sigh at the knowledge that the small house will be cramped of energetic children with a desire to move and do and nowhere to go.

“I guess it is. Riley, go wake your father up and tell him he needs to tie down the tarp for his project.”

“Okay mama.” Riley says obediently and goes to warn her dad that a storm is threatening to undo months’ worth of work on his father’s old truck.

#

Dennis stares blankly at his bare wall and wonders if anybody else in the house is up yet. Probably not because nobody in this house ever wakes up before 7 and only then because three different alarms will blare and scream to be heard, demanding to be turned off personally. Mom will smack her hand down with venom and Dad will sit up before politely stopping his. Andy will roar and there’ll be the sound of smashing followed by Mom yelling to stop breaking shit. It’s the morning routine.

A routine he’s not allowed to share because nobody outside of their house is ever to tell another soul that they’re anything less than plastic perfection. They used to say they were perfect but ever since Mom started seeing a surgeon about her wrinkles, Andy’s been calling it plastic perfection. Dennis doesn’t feel like it’s quite accurate because plastic itself is different in every conceivable way but he does enjoy the way his parents go red. Anything that annoys them that much has got to be good.

He's awake and not sure if telling a doctor about these sleepless nights is going outside of the idea of perfect. He read somewhere that he has insomnia and that there’s medication to help one sleep but is that too abnormal for his perfect life? He needs to sleep but he has no money to buy it on his own. Maybe if he promises to stop mentioning plastic whenever his parents are nearby, they’d let him ask somebody. Maybe they’ll stop looking at him like he’s broken when he shares his knowledge. Maybe they wouldn’t have to live so far away from town for fear that the neighbors would look in and see them being human for a moment.

Their house is on the very edge of a town too small to make itself known on the map which is just where his dad claimed was perfect. Dennis thinks it’s because it’s the perfect place to hide. From what, nobody will ever let him know but there’s got to be a reason why his dad looks over his shoulder whenever they enter town. Nobody here is anything deserving of suspicion, and they know everyone’s name yet his father is always looking behind him when he pulls out his wallet. He twitches like he’s never safe and sometimes, Dennis wonders.

The wondering is stopped short when Dennis notices that his lamp is flickering on and off. It struggles vainly before shrieking and giving out with a pop. His room is now lit only by the light on the ceiling which is now beginning its own struggle to remain alight. It too gives a hearty groan before surrendering and flickering out as well. The room is bathed in darkness and Dennis finds himself afraid and unable to breathe. For the first time since he was little, he wants to call out for his Mom.

He hears the lights in the house begin to crackle and imagines that every bulb is flickering to stay alive and then there’s the pops as each one begins to lose its fight. Around him the house begins to groan like it’s being burdened with a weight too heavy to bear.

#

Old man Turner had lived in this town before it was even a town. It’d been nothing more than a handful of families who respected each other’s privacy and left well enough alone. He’d seen people move in and people move out. He’d even seen his fair share of deaths. Being struck by lightening had made him feel like it was finally his turn to explore the innards of a wooden box but fate had kept him going.

Developers had even come and made this place a town but they’d left with their money more gone than Old man Turner’s imaginary funeral. Nobody else had come in after them and he’d laughed and laughed at their foolishness. This wasn’t the town for profit or growth. This was a town for the forgotten and hopeless, the sinners hiding from their crimes. Nobody was going to care about this place and Old man Turner had been waiting a long time for the day its end would come.

Three bolts of lightening had tried to end him but he’d carried on, determined to see the end. Decades of living had finally resulted in the ending he awaited. There wasn’t any sense in telling these people because nobody would listen to a man old enough to lose his teeth and all he’d known. Wouldn’t matter anyways because nobody in this town was the type to defy fate. Tell them doom is coming and like lowing cows, they’d lower their heads and stare at the grass all docile like.

But he knew. He’d been waiting long enough. Turner made sure to pull out his favorite rocking chair that he’d carved himself and sits down with a groan as his bones pop and protest his age. His favorite pop makes a delightful hiss as he opens the tab and takes a sip and carbonation burns all down his throat. He’s on his porch and thinks there’s nowhere better to end.

The darkness is coming for them and it’s thicker than any cloud and darker than any sky. The sun isn’t rising and brining with it all the oranges and pinks of morning. There’s a darkness thicker than night and it’s brining death and decay. Maybe not even that. Maybe it brings only an end and nothingness but either way, it’s crawling in all silent and thick like growing tar pretending it’s a cat sneaking up on prey.

Tendrils of black creep lightly towards him and Turner watches with a placid grin as it crushes his old trees, as old as he is now. They crumble like toothpicks beneath the weight of so much darkness and he knows that they’ll demolish his house built over the years, in less than a handful of seconds. Behind Turner is the town just starting to wake up for the morning and none of them fools know the darkness is coming and that morning is never really going to make it because nothing but an eternal night is creeping towards them.

And Turner, he can hardly wait for the end to come.