The Dark - part 1

Their afternoon walk slips into night, as the straggling children in the group slow the adults down.  David is walking with his daughter near the back of the group of friends, encouraging her home, which is still half an hour away.  The going is good, down a little used tarmacked road, overhung with trees forming a tunnel that frames the sea in the distance.  Although now only the shapes of the closer branches can be seen with just a faint light of the horizon at the mouth of the tunnel.

 

It has been a good day, they all thought so.  Everyone arrived early at David and Isobel's house, for a slow, relaxed lunch.  They prepared the vegetables together over some glasses of prosecco, they played board games with the children and talked in that easy way that families and friends do, with common histories, shared friends and shared views.  But David hadn't been enjoying it really.  He felt an outsider in the middle of his own family, somehow always forcing himself into taking opposing views, with a slowly increasing feeling of frustration.  Frustration at the smugness of the group, how bright and interesting they found themselves whilst they all agreed on every topic they discussed.  David was busy filling glasses, serving food and clearing away, keeping out of most of the conversations, but towards the end of the long lunch, helped by his own glasses of red that he had often refilled, he began to enter the discussions, forcefully, even brutally taking the opposing side, pushing his arguments far beyond what anyone wanted, or expected on this pleasant afternoon by the sea.

 

Isobel caught David in the Kitchen.  "What's up love?  You are being a bit harsh with Ian and Cathy, it's just art funding, not worth a fight you know".

 

"Oh, I'm sorry" David said, "I just can't relax, I think it's work"

 

David ran projects for the council, with all the lack of funding and political posturing that comes with local government.  He usually loved his weekends away, was good at letting go of all the week's frustrations.  But latterly he struggled to forget about it, both in the evening and at weekends.  And also at night, where his dreams seemed to be acting out his moods, with elaborate, terrifying hunts, with him as the prey, through dark woods, being chased by crones, witches with gnarled, whorled faces like old tree stumps.

 

"Look, go get the children ready, then we will set off for a walk.  Some air, some exercise, it will make you forget about it".

 

David went into the sitting room with all four children sitting around a Monopoly board, shouting and throwing money around, they were ready to go out.

 

It wasn't work.  He had been feeling this way for a while now, a quiet feeling of dread, a lack of something, leaving him tired and unconnected from everyone, even from himself.  Perhaps it was middle age.  He shrugged, took a deep breath and sat down with the kids to help them finish the game.

 

Eventually, with dishes stacked unwashed in the kitchen, Monopoly abandoned, with shoes and coats on, bags packed and ready for when they return, they leave for their walk.

 

Now Sarah holds her dad's hand tightly.  She has been running and shouting and playing with her friends and cousins all afternoon but in the dark, she is feeling tired and uncertain.  What was familiar no longer seems like home, the dark has made this a foreign place and she feels scared.  She asks her father to light a torch.  

 

David responds in adult tones to his ten-year-old daughter, a little annoyed at the childishness of her fear, but mostly responding to his own fear, a visceral reaction summoned up by her talk of being frightened.

 

"How can you be afraid of the dark? Dark isn't anything, you can't be afraid of nothing, of something that isn't there.  You aren't afraid of the dark, you are afraid of the things you can't see, that are looking at you, the things that are all around you and are thinking about you".

 

David breaks off, his words feel like they are coming from someone else, they seem like a spell.

 

Sarah doesn't really listen to him. She is afraid of the dark.  She likes a light on at night in bed, she always turns all the lights on if she has to get up to go to the loo, she really doesn't like the dark.

 

She holds even tighter to his hand and pleads,

 

"Your phone can be a torch, give it to me, I'll show you".

 

"But if I do that, we will be all lit up, anything out there will be able to see us quite clearly", David responds with a joking menace.

 

Sarah lets go of his hand and slips her hand into his pocket to get the phone, David tickles her, as much to lighten the mood as to stop her reaching it and then they both stop as they hear John from behind them,

 

"Dad, where's Eric?"

 

"What do you mean 'where's Eric'? He's with you",

 

"I know, but he's not here now" John says as he catches up with them.  Kate arrives with John, another of their cousins and she says that she doesn't think there is anyone behind her.  The three of them, John, Kate and Eric had all been playing together, but John and Kate had recently been chatting, and when they looked, they couldn't find Eric in the increasing gloom.

 

David walks back up the road a few paces.  He can see the outline of the three children below him, silhouetted by the light of the sea, but nothing at all further up the road.  It is black.  His earlier unease becomes fear, he is aware of the tightness of the muscles across his body, he feels out of breath even though he is still.  He listens and can hear the children below him, the wind in the branches but no sounds from the road above.  He calls out Eric's name, without conviction the first time, but then louder and urgent.

 

"Eric, Eric,.... Eric are you there?"

 

No response. David quickly returns to the three children.  The other adults are quite far ahead now, including his brother-in-law Doug, and Eric and Kate's father, Ian.  David wishes forlornly that the children could have stuck together, or that the others wouldn't have walked ahead so animated in conversation, leaving him to think about the group.  What now?  He tells the children to stay there, whilst he runs to get the other adults.  Sarah stares up at him.

 

"Please don't leave me daddy", she's crying, but tears come easily to her.  "I won't be long, not any time at all - just stay", and he's off, running down the road.

 

Running in the dark, he can't see his feet and the occasional ruts and bumps push him off balance, making it feel more like falling than running.  He shouts when he sees the outline of bodies ahead.  "Have you seen Eric?" 

 

The conversation continues whilst they look round, then stop as they sense David's concern.  Isobel, looks up at him, smiling.  "Not here, but he might be up front with Ian and the others", then, looking back at her sister and her husband, she continues their conversation as they walk down the road.

 

David's heart is a muffled drum in his body.  He knows that he is panicking, Eric will be there with his dad, but he continues his run down the road, he needs to know.  He sees bodies again in the gloom.

 

"Hey, Ian, is Eric with you?" He is out of breath now, but still shouts to make himself heard.  A boy's high-pitched response, "I'm here, what's wrong?"

 

The relief allowed David to exhale completely for the first time since he had heard the fear in John's voice.  He shouted back that there was no problem and started walking back up the hill.  Of course Eric would have gone to his father, why had he been so worried? Why couldn't the children play together rather than always splintering into different groups?  He shouted that everything was OK to Isobel and the others as they passed him and he continued back up to where he had left the children.  If it was dark going down the road, going back up, away from the sea, was inky - so dark that the mind had to create strange flickers and spots to make up for the void.  David began to hurry now, breaking into a slow jog, worrying about the children he had left standing alone in this blackness.  They would be fine, his experience with Eric had reminded him that the obvious, the most likely outcome was always the one that actually happened.

 

Just then he heard running steps coming towards him.  They must have heard him and were running in their relief.  He heard John first, "Dad, something's happened!" And at the same time he heard Kate's crying, a high-pitched alien wail that didn't seem possible to come from such a small girl.  David ran the last few yards to the children.  John was fighting back tears, trying to be as grown up as a 13 year old can be, but struggling to hold off the sobs.  "She's gone, she.. she just went.  Something... we heard something".  David took John by the shoulders, ignoring Kate, who continued to wail.  "Where's Sarah?  Where did she go? What's happened?"  John heaved in a breath, "we don't know, we couldn't see.  There was just...   a sound, something really big...   and we ran and you were here".  

 

"It's just happened, right now?"

 

"Yes"

 

David was off, stumbling up the hill shouting as loud as he could "Sarah, Sarah, where are you".  The children came after him, not wanting to be left alone, but not wanting to go back up the hill either.  David turned to them, "both of you, go to get the other adults.  And stay together".  As they started off he shouted after them, "John, where on the road did you lose her". He came a few steps back and replied "about where you are now - she was on the left side of the road".

 

"Left facing up or down"

 

"Whu...   Oh, facing up, no down, left facing down".  Then John and Kate ran off, staying close.

 

David shouted again, a feeling of nausea stopping him for a moment.  He listened.  Nothing, just rustling of the leaves in the wind.  She must have fallen over at the edge of the road, would still be there, perhaps unconscious or just frightened.  Nobody else would be out here would they?

 

David edged up the right hand verge of the road, feeling the mud and sticks of the margin and felt with his hand into the undergrowth.  It felt thick with thorns, grabbing at his fingers, he couldn't see anything.  Of course, his phone.  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled it out.  His hands were shaking.  He had never used it as a torch.  He looked at it blankly for a moment.  How on earth could he turn this thing on.  He jabbed the keypad passcode, getting it wrong the first two times, but the screen gave him no clues.  He shouted again, "Sarah, its Dad, just make a noise so I know where you are".  No sound, at least nothing that seemed human.  Should he call 999?  Where were everyone, why was he left on his own?