The Presence

The sharp wisps of her breath are all I can see when the darkness descends and the temperature sinks. I imagine she’s experiencing the same tightness in her chest, the same clenching of bowels as I do. Her breathing reminds me of seeing my sister-in-law in early labour.

As much as the sudden drop in light and heat causes me to involuntarily curl my shoulders inwards, to protect myself from what we both know is coming, the soft curve of her jaw and the fullness of her hips never leave my attention. She steadies her breathing and her lovely jaw tightens to indicate resolve. Fear was not unwarranted here, but like a housecat against a feral dog, she has no option but futile defiance.

We have to move.

We leave the confines of the small, empty closet and each takes a turn looking left and right. Nothing. Darkness. At least the darkness is still. The first time the light departed, we thought it was a power outage. Until someone, I can’t recall who froze in place first, pointing towards the far corner of the large room we had woken up in. The darkness there was thicker somehow, blacker. I could make out a convulsing swirl. This Presence was infecting the rest of the light, absorbing it. The concentrated darkness seemed to pulse, to flex within the shadows that enshrouded it. It was tangible. It didn’t have a smell. Or a sound. But I could feel it’s hunger like a film on my skin.

There used to be eight of us. We were in what we called the house, but it was clearly an old sanitarium or hospital. We had woken on the floor, none of us aware of how we got there or where we were. Of course, accusations rang out. A fight occurred. When the Presence appeared, we all stared in silence, most of us unable to fathom what we were looking at. Someone ran and we followed. One person, I didn’t even catch their name, was slow. After their screams died away, the light returned. What followed were hours of the same pattern: we wandered the house trying to find an exit. The darkness would descend, and we would go scrambling from room to room, trying to find light before the entity claimed another of our group. The house had no windows.

Due to accidental separation, we lost the other five. Only a cut-off scream and a splash of bodily fluids against the hardwood floor confirmed that it would be useless to go back for them. Not as if we could take on whatever was chasing us when we didn’t know what it was.  

We found the small closet. At first, we whispered only about the Presence and the rules that it seemed to abide by, mainly that if we could make it out of the room it manifested in, we were usually safe until it reappeared.

As the lights stayed on, we began to talk about other things. I love to hear her talk. She has the most feminine, airy voice, even when she’s speaking with passion.

I haven’t told her this, but she was the first thing I saw when we woke up in this place. Given how much my body ached, I had been lying on the hard floor for quite some time. The dim light revealed a young woman about my age, with curly dark hair, arched eyebrows, and a face softened by sleep. I had blinked hard, wondering why she was in my apartment. Had I invited her home? Had I been drinking last night? She stirred then, her eyes opening to meet mine. For a moment, she simply locked gazes with me, her expression wavering between perplexed, curious, and suspicious.

Since then, and I hope I haven’t been too obvious, I haven’t left her side. I want to protect her. I am the only one with any sort of combat training, being a police officer, and she is lithe in the legs and torso, minus her ample hips. She is fit, but clearly from the gym, not from a physically demanding job.

“I’m a law clerk,” she had whispered in the confines of the closet, the smallness of the room forcing us to stand, our chests nearly touching. I wouldn’t have complained if I had to press against her.

“I’m a cop,” I replied.

“Narc,” she said with a little smirk on her face. Earlier in the day, when we had the emotional energy to contemplate our situation, one of the others in the group asked whether this was a drug-induced hallucination and she’d agreed that was the best-case scenario.

We talked about our jobs a little bit, to distract us. She wanted to focus on immigration law, but the money wasn’t there, so she chose corporate, though it was killing her spirit. She wanted to go back and re-specialize.

“Maybe you could do criminal,” I suggested, “we could work together.”

“Do you often work directly with law clerks?” she asked, clearly teasing me.

“Maybe for you, I’d actually attend court.”

She laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth. For a few minutes, it had been like we were in a coffee shop, leaning towards one another, talking intimately, not hiding in a closet. She twirled a curl around a finger. I could almost taste the bitter residue of coffee on my tongue.

We’re running down the hallway. I can run much faster but want to keep myself between the Presence and her. I’ve always been protective. My little brother growing up. My pets. My friends call me the “mom” of the group.

Her tight curls bounce as she runs. I focus on them as a ship follows a lighthouse beacon. She glances quickly back. Not at me, but behind me, into what is undoubtedly a painful death. Why are we here? Why is this thing after us? And why did I have to meet her here?

“What … is this … hallway?” she manages to pant amidst our footfalls; her voice is jagged from exertion. We have been running for what feels like minutes, which makes no physical sense. But there have been no doors, no exits. The same dull wood-panelled walls over and over. The Presence begins to hiss behind us, the sound a kettle makes before reaching boil.

She begins to slow, a hand pressed to her side. I speed up and grab her around the waist. I propel her forward. Her sweat-soaked shirt presses against mine. The Presence begins to shriek, and the stench of ozone permeates the hall. My ears beg me to cover them with my palms, but I grit my teeth and resist. It’s trying to slow us down.

Finally, light ahead. It’s a door. Beside it is a little table with a lamp. I don’t have time to be curious. I shove her towards the door and sidestep to the table. As her sweat-slick hands struggle with the ornate crystal doorknob, I grab the table by the legs, upending it with a crash. I turn to face the Presence.

I crouch low, then use the momentum of standing and all the strength I can muster to launch the table. The Presence parts, like a portal from a sci-fi movie, and the table flies through it to the floor behind. What I can only describe as fingers, though they don’t resemble anything but slightly blacker darkness, precede the bulk of the Presence and reach towards me. They brush my face. I can’t move. Their touch is soft, but as the darkness leaves my flesh, it begins to burn. No wonder the others screamed as they died. I open my mouth to do the same, staring at the black nothing.

A warm hand grabs my right arm and yanks me backwards. I stumble, as the pull wasn’t that strong, but it’s enough to wake me up. I spin towards the door as she pulls at me again, helping me into the room.

I fall to my knees, breathing hard, trying to stifle the tears streaming down my cheeks which are getting trapped in the wound on the right side of my face. From what I can tell, there’s now a culvert running from my temple to my jaw.

“Help!” she croaks. I push myself to my feet. She is trying to close the door, but tendrils of darkness are sliding through the cracks like warm butter in a tight fist. I take a deep breath and rush towards her, slamming into the door with all my might. It closes. It latches. Dim light, like the precursor to dawn, fills the room from what I swear is the bottom up.

“Holy… shit,” she breathes. We both slide so our backs are against the door. My right arm is pressed against her left, and while my back wishes to adjust its position. I ignore the discomfort so to keep this limited and accidental contact with her.

“I…” The words die in my mouth. She looks up at me from where her head is resting between her knees. She takes deep breaths.

“What’s your name?” she asks when her breathing has returned to normal.

“Liz,” I say.

“Jayla,” she replies. Before I can tell her that’s a beautiful name, a pickup line that always seems to work despite its rather rudimentary nature, she moves away. But this is only so she can crouch in front of me. She takes the undamaged side of my face in her hand and moves my head to the side so she can examine my wound. She eyes what is undoubtedly a hideous scar. The feel of her fingers on my cheek are gentle, so unlike the fingers that had caressed me mere moments ago. Her hands burn me too but in a different manner.

“Does it hurt?”

“Surprisingly, no.”

“It looks more like a scar than a cut,” she says.

I shrug. I can’t explain it.

“Why did you do that?” she asks, taking her hand away.  

“Do what?”

“All of it. You’re clearly stronger than me – you could have outpaced me and saved yourself. You helped me when I got that cramp. You tried to take on whatever the hell is Presence is!”

I know what I want to say, but she’ll think I’m crazy if I tell her I need to protect her. A desire spurred by her beauty, her determination, the way she took charge when we were with the others, how she devised a plan to escape before the Presence showed up.

“Because … we’re allies,” I mumble.  

She raises an eyebrow at me, as if she doesn’t believe me, and steps back. After a moment, she extends a hand to help me up. I accept, and when I get to my feet, we are very close to one another, such as we were in the closet. Her eyes stare into mine for a long moment, as she wraps a curl around her finger again, then she steps away. Did her cheeks darken? I’m sure mine are pink. I turn, under the presumption of surveying the room, but I feel her eyes on me. Is she checking me out? I don’t risk turning around to find out. I’ve always hated my height, almost six feet, and I’ll admit the tattoos on my arm make me look a bit rough, but I have great legs. My brother clocks in at six foot three, though he uses his height for modelling. I also share with him flowing dark brown hair, which I usually keep pulled back. As I can feel her eyes still on me, I undo my hair tie and let my damp hair flow over my shoulders. If physical attributes and bravery are her thing, I hope I’ve shown enough to compel her.  

I replace the hair tie and glance around the room. Unlike the hospital-like area we stayed in with the group, this room has actual furniture in it. It’s covered in a thin layer of sticky dust. It smells like old book stacks. Nothing in the other rooms, as old as the beds had been, was dusty. This room has far too much furniture in it, as if someone were renovating the room next door and shoved their stuff in here. It’s claustrophobic.

“All this furniture is very old,” Jayla says, approaching an old pianoforte. “Victorian era.”

“If this is actually a hospital, maybe it was an old waiting room?” I suggest.

Jayla sighs in frustration, but not at me. “I wish I knew what was going on!”

She slides onto the piano bench and looks at the keys. She rests her fingers over them and begins a slow classical song. Mozart? I wasn’t raised on that kind of music. After a few bars, she stops, then spins on the bench to face me.

“We can’t keep running from room to room forever,” she says, her voice deep with determination. Her hands grip her knees. “When you threw that table, what happened?”

“The Presence parted to let the table through it.”

“If it avoids things, that means it can get hit!” she suggests, her tone brightening. “What if we make weapons?”

“With what?” I ask. She walks around the room, staring at the end tables, couches, ornate lamps, and stools. She stoops, grabs an end table by the bottom of its legs, and brings it up to smash it against one of the couches. It makes a loud creak when she strikes but it doesn’t break. She glances at me, chagrined that her dramatic action failed.

I laugh, approach her, and take the table. I smash it against the couch and the top breaks off, leaving two legs in my hands. The other two clatter to the floor while the top slides onto the couch, marring the dust over the faded upholstery. The pattern of stylistic roses reminds me of my grandmother’s curtains.  

“Is this what you wanted?” I ask, holding out one of the legs.

“Show off,” she says with a little grin. She takes one of the legs from me, backs up, and practices swinging. What she lacks in power she makes up for in precision. I want to tell her how beautiful she is, despite the situation. I want to take her in my arms, smooth those damp curls from her face.

“Jayla –” I step forward and take her hand. She glances down at it briefly, then up at my face.

Darkness drops on the room like an anvil. It’s so thick this time, perhaps due to all the furniture in the room. Jayla is a silhouette.

“Over there!” she points. I can’t see anything, but she pulls me towards what she sees. It’s a pocket door. She slides it open and we join the darkness in spilling into the next room.

Low hissing accompanies us as we race to the wall opposite. There are no other doors. The hissing brings forth the memory of a gas leak, when I was child. My fault. Can’t remember why. My mother’s scream when the kitchen slowly took on the smell of mercaptan, the rotten-egg scent. The Presence fills a room in the same threatening way.

I grip the table leg and rush forward. The Presence shoots itself forward, like a car bursting through a dense fog, and I stumble backwards in alarm, dropping the leg. I didn’t see anything, in truth, but the impression it left on my brain makes me scream. I can do nothing but scream. A brown object whistles past me as Jayla’s table leg flies towards the Presence shaking me from my trance. Like the last time, the darkness parts so the offending item passes harmlessly through it.

The Presence approaches us, pulling shadow from all corners of the room. Whether it’s strengthening itself for the kill or doing so because it enjoys seeing us quake, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to give this thing motivation or emotion. I’d rather it be an empty vessel than deliberately cruel.  

Jayla grabs my hand, pulling me towards her. The Presence seemed to falter, to waver. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. It’s like walking on a broken bone, but I force my head to turn and look at Jayla. She is ignoring the Presence to look at me. Despite the darkness, her eyes shine and my heart swells.

I clench my teeth to the pain. I want to precede my actions with a caveat, a request, but the Presence cuts off my words with a hawk-like shriek of attack. I bring my right hand around her waist, pulling her towards me. I press my mouth to hers. I want my last sensation to be what we could have had, not the Presence’s burning touch.

The sun is warm on my face. The crisp scent of freshly mown grass overwhelms my nostrils. I open my eyes. I’m lying on a lawn, my head resting on my arm. Am I dead? Is this the afterlife? Or have I simply been transported somewhere else?

Lying half a foot from me, curled on her side as she had been the first time we’d woken up in a strange place, is Jayla. I take the opportunity to let my eyes drink in the smoothness of her brown skin, the crisp curls to her hair, that lovely jaw. No matter where we are, whether the Presence is still after us, whether we’re somewhere different, at least I’m with her. She opens her eyes. She reaches over and places her hand on my cheek.

She smiles.