THE DARKENING

Phil Roberts About 6,300 words
22 Stafford Street, First Publishing Rights
Footscray (V) 3011 © Copyright 2024
AUSTRALIA. Phil Roberts



THE DARKENING
by
PHIL ROBERTS



It was the September school holidays and the Quincy family was having a family walk through the forest outside Glen Hartwell in the South Eastern Victorian Countryside. Quentin was a tall, raven-haired man of about forty, his wife Quinlana (Quinn for short) was a pretty thirty-something brunette. Their three children, Quella nine years old, Dorothy (nicknamed 'Queenie') aged eight, and Quinton aged seven, were all dead ringers for their mother facially. However, Quella and Quinton had their father's black hair.
"So tell us again why we're walking frew da wayne?" asked Queenie, holding her father's left hand and sharing his large black umbrella.
"It's only spitting, honey," replied Quentin, as they strolled slowly through the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest.
"It's cold," protested Quella, holding her mother's left hand, while Quinton held her right.
"Coolish, baby," said Quinn: "That's why you're wearing your jacket that Nana gave you for last Christmas."
"Hope she gives me something better this Christmas," moaned the little girl: "Like lollies, or Monster High dolls."
"You and Monster High," said Quinton shaking his head: "I prefer action DVDs: Bruce Willis, Vin Diesel, or Dwayne Johnson 'specially."
"You and your haction movies," said Queenie: "Gimme Monster High or Scooby Doo."
"Or Loud House or Casagrandes," added Quella.
"None of that sissy stuff for me!" insisted Quinton.
"Are you calling us sissies?" demanded Queenie.
"Honey, sissy just means like a girl," pointed out Quentin: "So there's nothing wrong with my two beautiful little girls being sissies."
"Well, okay," said Quella, sounding unconvinced.
While they were walking and talking, the rain had gradually stopped. However, the sky around them had started to darken almost eerily.
"Hey, night came herly," said Quella.
"It's not 10:30 AM yet," said Quinn, looking at her watch. Just in time, before they were all engulfed in waves of total darkness.
"What da elle happening?" shrieked Quinton.
At the same time, the two girls started squealing.
"Calm down!" cried Quentin: "It's just a black fog."
"What's a black fog?" demanded Quinn.
"I don't know. But they've had black rain, and black snow; both caused by pollution in the air ... So, this must be something similar."
The three children thought about this for a moment, then started screaming/squealing again.
"Calm down, kids," said Quinn, despite being alarmed herself.
As the Darkening started to close in, as though slowly solidifying, Quentin said: "Just follow the sound of my voice and walk slowly toward me."
Quinn and the kids did, as instructed until the five Quincies were holding hands.
"Now, we'll just walk slowly forward, until we get out of the fog," insisted Quentin: "But slowly, we don't want to brain ourselves upon any trees."
"Da fog's gettin' ficker," said Quella.
"That's just an illusion caused by your fear," said Quinn, although the fog did seem to be solidifying.
Queenie squealed, then said: "Something just slapped me."
"It's just your imagination, honey," said Quinn, despite and tendrils of the blackness seeming to slap at her too: "Just keep walking and we'll soon be out of it."
"What hiff hit goes hon forhever?" asked Queen.
"It's unlikely even the blackest fog could blanket the entire planet," assured Quentin: "Even when Krakatoa exploded people could still see .. even though the world was in night for a week or so."
"Are we gonna be hin night for a week whore so?" asked a terrified Queenie.
"No," insisted Quentin.
Even as he said it, they started to feel the black fog thinning out, and the tendrils stopped slapping at them.
"I think I can see a green light up ahead," said an excited-sounding Quinn.
"So, can I," said a relieved Quentin: "See, kids, we're almost out of the fog. Just keep walking slowly forward toward the green light."

Over at the Mitchell Street Police Station in Glen Hartwell, Suzette Cummings was manning the telephone, while Colin Klein, Terri Scott, and Sheila Bennett sat together at the huge blackwood desk which took up half of the front office, reading through the Victoria Police Manual, as they often did when bored shitless.
"That was Kenny Maxwell," said Suzette, hanging up. An attractive ravenette, Suzette had just turned eighteen, and was a police cadet only: "He says there's a strange night-black fog wafting through the forest outside Glen Hartwell."
"What's he want me to do about it?" asked Terri. At thirty-five, the beautiful ash blonde was top-cop of the entire BeauLarkin to Willamby area, covering nearly twelve thousand residents: "I'm not the weatherwoman."
"Oh, I love that film," said Sheila. A Goth chick with black-and-orange-striped hair, she was the second-top cop in the area. She had turned thirty-six that day.
"What film?" asked Terri.
"The Weatherwoman; it's a fantastic Japanese comedy film. The sequel, The Weatherwoman Returns is so-so; but the first film is fabuloso."
"She's a wealth of totally useless information, isn't she?" said Colin to no one in particular. About to turn forty-nine, the handsome redheaded man had spent thirty years as a London crime reporter, before retiring to start working for the Glen Hartwell Police Force after clicking with Terri.
"I choose to take that as a compliment," said Sheila: "Even though I know that's not how you meant it."
"Sorry, birthday girl," said Colin.
"So, what about the black fog?" asked Suzette.
"Oh ... I guess we can check up on it," said Terri: "You stay, manning the phone."
"Okay," said Suzette unenthusiastically.
As soon as they had left the room, she rang through to her sister, Marilyn so they could spend the next hour nattering.

"So, has Mrs. M. said anything about making me a birthday cake?" asked Sheila as soon as they entered Terri's police-blue Lexus.
"Oh, sorry, we forgot to tell her," lied Terri.
"However, we did get you a present," said Colin. He handed her a small square package.
"What is it?' she asked ripping off the paper to see a burgundy-coloured necklace book. Opening the box she took out a necklace with a golden heart upon it.
"It's solid gold, with silver inlaid writing," said Terri; as Sheila put on the necklace.
Sheila lifted the pendant to try to read it, but the writing was upside-down, so she had to twist it around to read: 'Mad Goth Chick!"' centred down the heart.
"Hey, I love it!"
"We knew you would," said Terri: "Now let's go hunting for black fog!"

Finally, the Quincies escaped the pull of the Darkening and found themselves still in a forest. But not the one they had started in. This forest had a bright green sun, shining in an orange sky, with cobalt-blue trees, and cherry-red dirt underfoot.
“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,” said Quinn before fainting.
"Quinlana!" cried Quentin racing across to his prostrate wife.
As he started ministering to her, behind him Queenie and Quella started screaming.
"Girls, concentrate on the pretty orange sky or blue trees," said Quentin, not having seen why his daughters were squealing.
"Daddy, I don't fink they care about the sky ot twees," said Quinton.
As Quinn started to revive, Quentin looked up and saw the yellow creature wending toward them. It had a long serpentine body but with heavily clawed feet, yellow, slitted eyes, and a long spear-like tongue. Its tail swished from side to side like the tail of any angry cat.
Picking up Quinn, Quentin said: "Everybody back into the black fog!"
However, when they turned to run, the fog had disappeared; leaving them to face the yellow serpent.

Between Sheila admiring her pendant, and trying to drive, they almost crashed half a dozen times, before finally reaching the area Kenny Maxwell had claimed to be full of black fog. However, all they saw were trees, and a couple of umbrellas.
"Anyone see any thick pea soup fog?" asked Terri as they alighted from the car.
"Actually, he said it was black fog," pointed out Sheila: "So it's more like charcoal soup."
"Or heavily burnt pea soup," said Colin.
"Okay, let's look around for half an hour or so," said Terri: "On the odd chance that Kenny isn't insane."
"That would be odd," said Sheila as they started walking through the forest.
After half an hour they met up again!
"Find anything?" asked Terri.
"Two brollies," said Sheila: "A man's black one, and an orange-and-green-striped woman's. I wouldn't mind keeping the orange and green one."
"Well, if no one claims them in three months you can keep them both," said Terri: "In the meantime, they stay in the lost-and-found closet."
"We have a lost-and-found closet?"
"That room in the back area of the station with all those odds and sods in it," explained Colin.
"I thought that stuff belonged to the station?"
"Technically most of it does now, since it's been there for over three months."
"Great," said Sheila. Almost running across to the Lexus, she said: "Let's go check it out."
"Why, Sheils?" asked Terri.
"So I can get myself some extra birthday presents."
"We should never have told her about the lost-and-found closet," said Colin as he and Terri started after the Goth chick.
After arriving at the station, while Suzette watched on Colin, Sheila, and Terri raced through the front room toward the door to the back room.
"Where ya going?" asked Suzette.
"To check out the lost-and-found closet," said Sheila.
"We have a lost-and-found closet?" asked Suzette, following after them.
After more than an hour, they returned, all loaded with goodies.
"You know, technically we're stealing," said Terri.
"If you don't want your stuff, I'll have it," said Sheila.
"Not a chance," said Terri yawning, which set off Suzette and Colin.
"I'm feeling a bit shagged out," said Colin: "Maybe we should return to the Yellow House for a couple of hours rest."
"Is that what you call it now," teased Sheila, making Suzette giggle.
"I'm a little tired too," said Suzette: "I might knock off for the day."
"Guess you're left to man the phone, Sheils," teased Colin.
"As if!" said Sheila: "I'm the birthday girl."

Giles Doohan was walking his black-faced merino sheep through the forest up from his back paddock where they had feeding on the long grass, to the corral a hundred metres or so behind his farmhouse on the outskirts of LePage.
"Getting dark early today," said Giles looking about himself as the merinos started bleating excitedly. The sky above him still seemed quite light, but the darkness was closing in all around him, a dark fog from ground level to perhaps five metres into the air.
"What the Hell," said Giles as the Darkening swallowed him and the merinos completely.
He tried leading the merinos through the darkness toward the farmhouse, however, they soon panicked and tried to flee. Except that the dark fog had started to thicken, until soon it was like trying to walk through treacle - preventing Giles or his sheep from fleeing.
"Stupid bloody black fog," said Giles.
Seconds later the bleating of the merinos went up a notch in volume and in panic, as though the sheep were being attacked by something hidden in the glutinous darkness.
"What's going on?" asked Giles, of no one in particular.
Hamstrung by the darkness, the farmer tried locating his sheep by touch but soon could barely move as the black fog continued to solidify around him and his panicked merinos.
Giles had almost given up hope of finding his way out of the darkness when he saw a small but bright green light blinking through the darkness. Forced to abandon his livestock for now, the farmer started swimming his way through the treacly blackness. Standing up, swimming was difficult, but centimetre by centimetre he managed to force his way through the sludgy fog until he was almost up to the green light.
Then from out of the light raced to little figures, both screaming in high, girlish voices. The two figures also had to swim through the stygian fog, even more slowly than Giles.
Not knowing whether to go after them or continue onward, the farmer treaded fog, undecided, until noticing something much bigger showing up against the bright green light he could make out the giant figure of the part-serpentine, part lizard-like creature, tail swishing, as it raced out of the neitherworld and toward the Darkening.
Trying his best to swim back through the black fog, Giles was unable to escape the reptilian monster, which soon had him in its great jaws which it used to crack him open like a giant nutcracker cracking a gigantic nut.

Up at the white weatherboard farmhouse, Myrna Doohan had just started to put on her husband's tea, when she heard the running footsteps on the deal wood porch out back. Looking around, the chubby brunette expected to see her hungry husband returning to the farmhouse tired and dirty. Instead, she saw the tops of the heads of two little figures racing toward the fly screen door out back.
"Who the...?" said Myrna going across to open the backdoor before the visitors could even knock.
Stumbling inside, the two little girls clung onto the brunette for dear life, sobbing, and panting for breath.
When she had finally calmed them down, Quella Quincy said: "Da dark fog ate our parents."
"And Quinton," added Queenie, bore both girls started crying again.

When they arrived at the Yellow House in Rochester Road in Merridale, there was no sign of life.
"Looks like no one's home," said Terri, surreptitiously grinning to Colin.
"Who cares, as long as we can...?" began Sheila, stopping, startled, as the hall light suddenly went on and a dozen people called out:
"Surprise!"
"What the...?" began Sheila, then seeing Deidre Morton, her landlady, carrying a massive cake with candles on it: "Are you blokes ... I thought you'd all forgotten."
"How could we," said Derek Armstrong a black American-born paramedic and Sheila's boyfriend: "You've been dropping less than subtle hints for the last ten days at least."
"Trust me," said Cheryl Pritchard, the chief paramedic of the area, and Derek's boss and friend: "Strong Arm was being kind when he said less than subtle."
"Subtlety is not your strongest trait, Sheils," said Tommy Turner, a short, fat, blond retiree living at the house. As everyone else started laughing, he said: "What's the joke?"
"Coming from you, that's the pot calling the kettle black," said Natasha Lipzing. At seventy she had spent the last thirty-five years at the boarding house.
"How dare you," demanded Tommy.
"Tommy, calling you subtle, is like calling Donald Trump sane," said Freddy Kingston, another recent retiree living at the Yellow House: "To quote Normie Rowe, 'It Ain't Necessarily So'!"
"How dare you?" demanded Tommy as the hall phone started ringing.
"Aren't you still on phone duty, Suzette?" asked Sheila.
"I guess so," said the raven-haired teen going out into the hall.
A few minutes later, she returned to say: "That was Myrna Doohan, from the Doohan Sheep Station outside LePage. She said the Quincy girls raced into the farmhouse saying a black fog ate their parents and brother!"
"I can safely say that was the last thing I expected you to say," said Colin.
"That damn black fog again," said Terri: "We'd better go investigate. Sheils as the birthday girl, you stay here. We'll take Suzette on one of her rare non-phone related cases."
"Okey dokey," said Sheila starting to cut the case.
"Actually, we'd better go too, in case it's true," said Cheryl Pritchard.
She, Derek, and Leo Laxman all headed outside.

Over at the sheep station they talked to Myrna and were told the same as over the phone.
"Also I'm worried because Giles hasn't returned for his tea yet."
The brunette had given Quella and Queenie some mild sleeping tablets, so while they slept Terri, Colin, and Suzette went out back with torches to look for the sheep farmer.
From time to time they called his name without answer.
It had started to darken by the time that they found the mass of badly chewed sheep bones. Amongst which were also the skeletal remains of Giles Doohan.
"What the Hell could have eaten seventy-odd merinos plus Giles without even leaving their wool or clothing?" asked Suzette.
"Nothing that I know off," said Terri staring in disbelief at the remains.
"Even a tiger would choke on all that wool," said Colin: "And you'd need an entire streak of tigers to eat so much."
"Streak?" asked Suzette.
"That's the collective noun for tigers," said Colin: "Or else an ambush."
"Ambush seems the more appropriate name," said Terri, horrified by the great mass of animal and human bones left in the wake of the Darkening.
When they arrived back at the farmhouse they were relieved to see another ambulance had arrived, besides the one with Cheryl, Derek, and Leo. Also two doctors from the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital: Jesus Costello (pronounced 'Hee-Zeus') a tall muscular man and chief surgeon, and Tilly Lombstrom, a tall shapely, fifty-something brunette, and Jesus's second-in-command.
While Tilly went to administer sedatives to Myrna and the Quincy girls, Terri, Colin, Derek, Cheryl, and Leo went down to see what they could make of the remains of Giles Doohan.
"According to Quella and Queenie Quincy he was eaten by the black fog which everyone except us has seen around Glen Hartwell and parts lately," explained Terri, making Jesus stare at her.
"Honestly," said Colin as Jesus continued to stare at them.
"If you say so," said Jesus returning to examine the bones, he took some photos, then said: "They've certainly been gnawed to pieces."
After the remains had been scooped up to be taken to the hospital, they all started back toward the farmhouse.
"So what do you think of one of your first field cases, Suzette?" asked Colin.
"To quote my one-time-hippy grandfather, 'Weirdsville man'," said the ravenette, making everybody laugh.

Eventually, Terri and Colin managed to return to Rochester Road to find most of the partiers gone, and Sheila draped almost from head to toe in bling.
"We'll have to call you Bling-Bling Chick if you keep wearing all that stuff," teased Terri.
"Virtually everybody gave me necklaces, broaches, or bracelets," said the Goth chick: "I thought I'd try them all on together, just once. What do you both think?"
"You look like a slightly long-in-the-tooth hippy dip," teased Colin.
"Ignore him, Sheils," said Terri: "You look great. Did you get anything besides jewellery?"
"Yes, Mrs. M. gave me a beautiful black jewellery case. Just as well, or I wouldn't know where to keep all this stuff." She showed them the large case which was made of black mother of pearl.
"Excelente!" said Colin.



Or go raving mad,
Or go on a rampage murdering or raping,
Men rape their own daughters,
Women murder their own babies,
A riot occurs in Glen Hartwell Mall after the darkening descends in the early afternoon and fills the mall,
Perhaps Lulu Wellins goes temporarily insane, forcing Lisa Williams and Donald Esk to take care of Woof permanently, till Lulu recovers after the Darkening is dispatched

Perhaps Bulam-Bulam has heard of the Darkening, a Dream-Time myth, and he and Abrs. perform a ritual to call Darkening to them, not knowing if they can destroy it, or whether it will destroy them.

THE END
© Copyright 2024 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia