The Dark One Cometh Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Darkness Conceived

The shrill discharge of the overhead intercom slicing into the crisp night air did not catch Marty’s attention. He is preoccupied with loading pallets onto the flatbed trailer, while listening closely to the familiar voice of the late night DJ announcing the next thirty-minute string of hits about to play in his headphones.

The announcement following the attention signal begins filtering into his senses as a string of garbled sounds, not unlike a person speaking under water.

Marty halts his progress, pallet mid air, silencing the engine and sliding the earphones around his neck, listening intently, barely catching the tail end of the announcement.

If it is meant for him, another will follow, so with a slight shrug he continues.

A few minutes pass before the beep comes again. This time he is ready, turning off the motor, to hear better.

'Marty Sooner phone call on extension 315’, the sound of the announcement reverberates around him, causing the hair on his arms to stand on end.

"This can’t be good, something has to be dreadfully wrong." Surely a phone call at 3 a.m. means bad news of some sort.

In the seven years since starting the graveyard shift, he has only received two calls. The first his, Pops heart attack. The last and final, his brother's fatal car wreck.

In a flash, Marty lowers the pallet to the ground, thinking different scenarios; could there be something wrong with his mother, wife, Sis?

His heart beat rapidly, foot grinding the gas pedal to the floor, barely avoiding stacks of pallets and guide rails along the way.

He instinctively set the parking brake, lowering the forks, fumbling with the rigging securing him in the safety cage. “Damn belt!”, he shouts, struggling with the restraint system. His anxiety intensifies with every passing second.

The blast from the intercom sounds again, causing him more distress, “Marty Sooner you have a call holding on extension 315.” Finally, the harness lets loose, and Marty peels it from his body, thrusting himself from the confines of the safety cage, intent on answering this call.

While struggling to free himself, his elbow is still bound in the strapping. Leaping from the safety cage the loose shoulder harness cinches tight around his bicep shifting his bodyweight to the side. He stumbles awkwardly, flailing to regain his stability in a sideways half run movement. His effort to regain steadiness was ineffective. The inertia of his forward motion sent him hurling hard onto the floor ripping a large hole through the knee of his jeans, scraping a painful gash in his flesh.

His breath hisses through his teeth in reaction to the searing pain of the fresh wound. Rising to his feet, Marty is aware that his mishap has not gone unnoticed.

He tries to ignore the howling, and taunting laughter from his co-workers, close enough to see his fall. While standing and making every effort to appear composed and unaffected.

As he reaches the entrance Marty pauses for a moment, the sound of his coworkers still reveling in the merriment of his awkward dismount causes his face to redden, and he can hear Dale (the biggest ball buster in the factory) howl, “We all saw that, yoouu clumsy fuckah!”

He clenches his eyes tight praying, “Please don’t let this be another doomed pregnancy for Annette."

He flings open the door, dialing extension 315 before the flicker of the overhead lights fully illuminates the office.

“Hello, this is Marty.”

“Martin!”

He immediately recognizes his wife’s trembling voice, “Annette, Is there something wrong honey?”

“Yes Martin, it’s the baby.”

Marty’s face turns from red to pale as she utters those words, “Oh no Annette, not again!” He groans remembering the heartache that accompanied all the previous failed pregnancies.

“No Martin it’s not like that this time, the baby is moving allot, and feels strong, real strong.”


Marty breathes a sigh of relief, using the thumb and index finger of his free hand to soothe his throbbing temples.

He clenches his teeth, again hissing slightly while adjusting the ripped denim to better examine his stinging knee.

“Geeze Annette you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Why would you call me at work, this time of the morning to tell me that the baby feels ok?”

His relief is quickly replaced with feelings of annoyance.

“You know Annette, I nearly broke my neck trying to get off the lift to answer this call, I thought something is terribly wrong.”

Annette cut him off, “But Martin, I'm calling to say there is something terribly wrong, the baby is”…her voice trails off, straining to maintain her composure.

Anxious to understand what is on her mind, Marty urges her to continue, “The baby is what Annette?”

She does not answer, and after a moment of silence, Marty asks sternly, “What is it you want to tell me?”

“The baby is evil!” she blurts out in a forced pitchy voice. “I can’t believe I am finally admitting it!”

Marty’s jaw dropps, a stunned expression consuming his face.

“What…his utter shock causes him to pause, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Did you say what I think I heard?” “You’re joking, right?” “Hah, Hah, go ahead, tell me you’re joking!”

Annette’s tone is firm and direct. “No Marty, I have never been more deadly serious.”

Growing angry, he snaps at her. “What the hell are you talking about?” “Annette, do you hear what you’re saying, and just how insane it sounds?”

Annette has to make him understand. “I’ve been having the most horrible dreams, about the future, of horrible suffering and death.”

Her voice now trembling like she is holding back tears. “I’m convinced these dreams are visions of the horrifying future that awaits the world after this child arrives.”

“My God Annette, I can’t believe my ears!” "Why are you talking like this?”

“Martin, I know this sounds crazy, but I started feeling this way even before the doctor confirmed I am pregnant.”

“About a month before we made the appointment I I could feel the evil taking root within me.” “And with each passing day it gets stronger." "I feel its cold essence, its darkness growing, feeding off me.” “And it has been making me do things.”

He feels confounded, “Making you do what sort of things?”

She sniffles lightly. “It made me stick a knitting needle in the wall socket.”

Her voice grows more frantic, “I had no control of my arm!” “I didn’t even realize it was happening at first.” “I was on the couch watching my soaps and knitting while you were sleeping. "Suddenly my arm kind of started feeling tingly.” “And then while I was sitting there looking at my hand holding the knitting needle, it just jumped, causing me to drop the needle on the floor.” “I got off the couch and squatted down to pick it up, when all of a sudden!”

Her voice distinctly quivering as she fights back tears. “All of a sudden my hand shot out straight in front of me poking the needle into the wall socket.” “The shock was an unpleasant feeling for me, but I think the baby enjoyed it.” “I don’t know if it was the shock, or the power it displayed over me.”

Marty is floored by this conversation, as he stands in the shipping office struggling to find the appropriate words.

“Honey, just listen to me for a second, you have got to calm down. "You probably just had an involuntary muscle spasm." "You shouldn’t get yourself so upset.”

“No Marty, it’s not just that, there’s other stuff, and it’s gotten worse." "Last night I was having another of those dreams, when I woke up screaming, but I wasn’t in bed.” “I was standing at the dresser in our bedroom with one of the chocolate candies you bought me in my hand, and my mouth full of them.” “I had chocolate running all down my chin and the front of my night clothes!”

“Annette, that sounds to me that you may have been sleep walking.”

“No Marty, it’s more, I can feel it.”

Marty tries to remain rational, “Annette you have got to stop this crazy talk.” “I’ve heard that when a woman is pregnant her body goes through some pretty intense shit, this is all thats happening here.” “You are over-reacting because of all the hormones.” “Just calm yourself and go back to bed, if you get some rest you will feel better.”

Annette cuts in, “I’m afraid to sleep, it has more control when I am sleeping.”

“Get yourself a glass of warm milk, it will help you to calm down.”

Looking through the window of the shipping office, Marty notices the truck driver he had been loading. He appears impatient, tapping his finger to his wristwatch and motioning for Marty to hurry up.

Marty talks softly, mellowing the tone of his voice to comfort her.“Listen sweetie, I don’t mean to cut you short, but I am in the process of loading a truck, and I have to get back to work.”

She feels silly for becoming hysterical, “Ok Marty, I’ll do that, I’m sorry to scare you.”

“Ok Annette I’ll see you in a couple of hours when I get home, goodbye I love you.”

“I love you too Marty, bye.”

After hanging up he stads still for a moment reflecting on the phone call. Shaking his head and rubbing the back of his very tense neck, he turns off the light and goes back to work.

The remaining hours of his shift seem just too far away and the phone call from his wife leaves him with a very uneasy feeling that something is very wrong. “She’s acting crazy like this because of the hormonal changes, that’s all it is” he says to himself several times throughout the remainder of the shift to warily console apprehension.

He is first in line at the time clock when the shift ends. He walks quickly to his car, opens the door tosses his lunch pail, jacket and safety glasses in the back seat, jumps into the driver seat fumbling with his keys hastily.

“Come on God dammit!” He shouts at himself while struggling to put the ignition key in right. Once he gets the key right it was just a matter of seconds before the engine races and the transmission is in drive lurching the car forward cutting right into the path of the line of co-workers that have already gotten their vehicles in motion.

BEEEP…..a horn screams causing him to jam on the brakes. Jack a line worker was flailing his hands and mouthing "you stupid fuck!’

Marty waives his hands in the air and saying,‘sorry”. In a flash he is in a line of vehicles waiting to exit the parking lot of the plant.

His mind races as he notices how slowly the line of cars in front of him exits the parking lot. “Oh man, this is just perfect!” he yells slapping his hand on the dash after noticing the long line of cars he has yet to yield into.

In his haste to leave the plant he forgot that there is always a major bottleneck of cars exiting the industrial park. Most of the factories all have shifts that start and end at the same time. Marty usually departs about 15 minutes after the end of his shift to avoid having to sit in the traffic. Anyone not lucky enough to get into one of the pole positions exiting the parking lot becomes embroiled in a blood sport of darting into any gap that might open up in the line of cars.

The line of cars in front of him creep slowly into the bottleneck. He contemplates whether he should exit by way of the bottleneck at entrance one. Or race down to another of the entrances that exist farther down in the park.

Alternatively, he envisions throwing caution to the wind and attempting to cross the quarry that runs parallel to the industrial park.

“Yeah I could cut out all the waiting if I just detour through the quarry,” he says aloud.

The line of cars in front of him lessens by another car.

“Time is running out Marty, you have to make a decision quick,” again speaking aloud as if his alter ego was sitting invisibly in the seat right next to him. “Think, think,” he taps a finger on his forehead. “The quarry could possibly save you some time.” He envisions instead of turning left into the bottleneck, he could make the right and small left toward the dirt entrance of the quarry, spinning his tires around each turn. He imagines, (with all the vividness that most any teenage boy fantasizes about driving fast and furiously), roaring onto the dirt road a trail of dust flying behind him, the sound of pebbles and dirt glancing off the underside and quarter panels, the wind in his hair, his machine responding perfectly to the expertise of his command.

“Yeah, yeah,” he is beginning to really enjoy the fantasy. Another car darts into the single file bottleneck, just one more in front of him now.

He envisions ripping through the quarry in time enough to get ahead of Dale, first person that had left the parking lot, waving to him smugly as he shoots debris onto his car.

Then he considers the worst-case scenario, “Oh my God, I could just imagine ripping something major off the bottom of the car.” His vision includes a ripped off oil pan, and the loud rapping of the engine as it quickly loses oil. Or the loss of his exhaust system, and how ridiculous he will feel pulling in front of the house with a car louder than a freight train.

His vision even considers puncturing a tire, “Ooh, that wouldn’t be good, and the spare is not inflated." He will have to roll the full size spare a mile and a half to the nearest service station to fill it up, and then roll it back and change the tire.

“Then I wont get home until dusk,” he says with a low groan. He pictures Annette standing at the door slapping a rolling pin in her hand, annoyed, waiting to pounce.

Or even worse, he imagines flying down the dirt quarry road straight into the path of a huge dump truck, crushing him to death.

The last scenario is enough to cinch it, he decides to play it safe and enter the bottleneck.

The ride home is quick, within ten minutes Marty parks in front of the quaint two-bedroom house he and Annette call home.

He is sure to be quiet slipping the key into the lock on the front door. It is 7:20 a.m. and if Annette is sleeping he does not want to disturb her, or raise their dog to barking.

Upon entering the living room he glances around to see nothing out of the ordinary, the strong morning sun is peeking through the cracks in the drawn curtains. He moves towards the kitchen and is stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that lay before him.

“Oh God!” he spoke silently still maintaining his composure. “What the hell?”

The kitchen lay in a state of disarray, the refrigerator door is open, eggs broken on the floor, the milk carton is crushed with a puddle of milk, and footprints in a random pattern on the linoleum floor.

“Annette,” he calls out, and quickly regretting it since if there were an intruder at some point in the night, they may still be there.

He grabs a long knife from the butcher block on the counter. His mind wrangling with the fear of what he has yet to discover. He makes his way down the hall towards the bedroom. Creeping closer towards the partially open door he hears a faint sound, almost a gurgling, but he can not quite tell what it is.

“What is that noise?” He wonders, his mind racing. He pauses about two feet from the door to listen.

“It sounds like….gurgling and grunting,” he notes while cautiously pushing the door open. The sight of Annette crouching in the middle of their bed with her back to him greets him.

“Annette?” he asks approaching her. The sight of his wife made him shudder, the blade slipping from his loose fingers to stick straight up in the floor, quivering.

She is crouching and chewing what appears to be the bloody carcass of the kitten he gave her as a gift a few weeks prior. She is very intent on what she is doing, completely oblivious to his presence. Blood soaked fur line her face and shoulder length brown hair.

“Annette,” he says raising his voice and grabbing her shoulders. “What are you doing?” Jerking her head to look at him she makes a sound unintelligible, in a tone of that sounds as if were made by an infant.

“Annette,” he says again shaking her slightly.

She immediately closes her eyes, going limp with his hands still on her shoulders. As she lay down she begins screaming and crying out “Nooooo!” All at once her eyes start welling, and the tears gush rolling down her cheeks.

Again, Marty shook her “Annette, honey what’s wrong?” Annette’s eyes shot open and she sat straight up in the bed, knocking Marty off balance backwards into the wall, she is still wailing and crying.

“Marty?” She asks as if she has not seen him. She is breathing heavy and obviously upset. “I was dreaming, a terrible dream, about the baby, about the horrible things that are going to happen” she sobbs.

Marty remains in the position he had fallen, staring in disbelief; still reeling with a combination of shock and terror. She glances down at her hands in noticing they are blood soaked, then pulls her nightgown straight revealing the mutilated kitten shrouded in the folds. She leaps to her feet in the middle of the bed.

“What the hell is that?” she shrieks.

Marty stands up still dazed by the events that he has just witnessed. “You remember what you were just doing?” His voice ringing of disbelief.

“No, I don’t”.

“You were eating that!”

She feels numb, sitting down in the middle of the bed. “Marty, something is seriously wrong here,” she begins to rock ever so slightly, still staring blankly, void of any expression. “I can feel it in the very core of my being, an icy, vile presence growing within me”; her voice remains unwavering and calm.

Marty feels an urgency to gain some sense of normalcy, “Annette we will make an emergency appointment with the Doctor today.” “Let the Doctor examine you and try to explain what you are going through.” “Ok?” “Come on lets get you cleaned up and I will call the Doctor to see if we can get in right away, first thing if possible.”

He reaches over lightly caressing her slime-coated hand. “Yeah Marty that’s a good idea,” agreeing in monotone voice.