Chapter 19

Isaac Milton

April

Isaac went out again at night to check the crack in the sky. He didn’t go all the way out to the fields beyond town, and he didn’t bother lugging the telescope with him. Just the lens. Clouds obscured most of the sky, but he could still glimpse the shimmering fracture well enough to ascertain that it had neither grown nor moved. Still no word from the astronomical authorities. If NASA knew about this (and they must, right?), they were keeping it quiet. Whatever was going on here, it was over his head, out of his league. Like everything seemed to be, sometimes.

Nothing in the news about McFinn, either, and no more word from the mysterious Clara. Internet searches would never be the same.

He checked the place in the ditch where he’d seen the dead eagle. It was gone. Coyotes, probably. Or maybe Mr. Larson, the taxidermist, who was known to scavenge dead critters.

Isaac was turning to go back home when he spotted it: a white bird, perched atop a leaning wooden fencepost across the ditch. An owl, to be specific. A, uh, snowy owl, probably? Isaac couldn’t see its eyes, and it was so white and still that for a confused moment Isaac wondered if someone had come along and made an incredibly lifelike snow sculpture just there on the fencepost. But no, that was stupid.

Isaac grinned. He’d never been this close to an owl before. It was maybe, what, six steps away? It didn’t seem scared of him, and it still hadn’t moved. Isaac’s grin faded, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He took a careful step toward the owl, his tennis shoe crushing the snow with a faint squeak. Still no movement. Another step, and now he was way too close. No real owl would still be just perched there. Was it dead? A prank? Was it a stuffed owl dipped in white paint and nailed to the fencepost? The thought of a Norwegian Blue Parrot drifted through his mind and returned the smile to his face.

“Well,” he said as he began to walk forward with the intent to just grab the thing, “we—”

A flash of whiteness made him cry out, more in alarm than pain. He found himself on his back, blinking up at the murky night sky in confusion. No afterimage. The flash had not been light, exactly. Just blankness. A faceful of snow, but not cold.

When he sat up, the owl was gone.

He sat there for a minute, trying to sort out what had just happened. He didn’t remember falling. Had he blacked out? Whited out?

His left hand was clenched around the lens. On a whim, he put the flawed crystal to his eye and scanned the area. No owl. He couldn’t resist looking up at the sky. The crack was still there, of course. He checked the rest of the sky, and that was how he noticed the darkness. It was not in the sky, but in the lights of Pikeston itself. A flickering shadow writhed between the distant streetlights, blotting them out, dimming the stars, swarming around an unseen core.

He shivered. Words surfaced in his mind. Something Wicked this way Comes.

He pocketed the lens, unnerved, attempting to reassure himself. Pikeston looked just fine to his normal, unaugmented eyes. He no longer wanted to be outside in the dark, however.

It was late when he returned through the vaguely-defined western border of the municipality of Pikeston. The houses were mostly dark, the streets were mostly deserted, and a soft but chill breeze began picking up. Many of the streets in Pikeston lay shrouded in shadows, broken by the somewhat irregular streetlights. Only Main Street was well-lit at all times, and Isaac had to pass Main to get home.

Isaac turned a corner blindly when he reached Main Street, nearly colliding with a tall figure. They both stepped back. Isaac, his eyes previously fixed on the sidewalk in thought, looked up in surprise. Who else was out here at this time of night? Probably one of the guys from the Wagon Wheel bar, open until midnight.

“Shay,” said the other man. “Watch your shtep. Shidewalksh can get shlippery.”

Isaac’s eyes widened as he stared up into the face of a nightmare. It was a gaunt face, blotchy, sickly and stained. Angular chin and hooked nose. Cracked lips stretched into a smile that seemed to defy possibility, revealing perfectly white teeth. Crazed eyes wide, yellow and bloodshot, the irises black. Long, greasy waist-length dark hair hung in stringy clumps around his face, seeping out from under a broad dark hat.

Only when his heel struck an irregularity in the sidewalk did Isaac realize he had been retreating. “Thanks,” he said, although it came out only as a croaking whisper. So this was fear. Get a grip, Isaac! The stranger was just a guy. Just some freak. A vagrant, a meth-head. In which case, still an Unstable and Dangerous Individual. To be handled with care. Unless…

“What’sh your name?” asked the man. His voice was rough and harsh, as though he’d shouted himself hoarse.

“Um…what’s yours?” asked Isaac. With great effort he managed the self-control to not take another step back, although every instinct urged him to turn and run. He glanced around, trying not to seem panicked. The street lay deserted and quiet, but the faint sound of music still drifted from the Wagon Wheel, not far away. He always avoided that place at night, not because it was dangerous but because drunks made him uncomfortable. But now he’d give anything to be in there with other people, instead of out here with…

“Abraham Black,” said the man with an elaborate bow that involved him sweeping off his hat and bending low to the ground in a boneless movement that was subtly wrong. During his bow Isaac saw that he wore a long black coat, tattered and shredded to ribbons which trailed along on the ground. It was faded and dusty, like everything else he wore: cowboy boots, dark jeans, grey shirt with silver buttons. But most of all, Isaac saw two enormous silver revolvers hanging from Abraham Black’s cracked, faded belt.

Isaac’s heart was pounding, his breath quickening. Abraham Black is coming . Cool. Be cool. No sudden movements. HOLD FAST. Be like Dwayne. A Psalm: you will not fear the terror of the night…

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“Sho, kid,” said Abraham Black, looking down at him. “Sheen anything shtrange lately?” His unnatural smile seemed to stretch even further. Some of his perfect white teeth became stained with red as his cracked lips split and bled onto them.

Strange? No, man, haha, nothing strange, why do you ask? Isaac opened his mouth and tried to speak, but found that he could not. You will not fear the terror of the night…

Was it about the crack in the sky? That must be it. What else?

But this Abraham Black didn’t look like any kind of scientist. He looked like a dangerous psychopath. But wait… Black? Isaac thought of the paper in his pocket, the crayon drawing by Jim, the shape of the person in the darkness. Do not engage .

But he couldn’t move. Time seemed frozen as the two of them stood in the cold midnight air on Main Street, drenched by the streetlights. They stared at each other: one in terror and one in some kind of gleeful contentment.

“I’m lookin’ for an angel,” continued Black after the pause. “Sheen one around? Beshidesh the dark one inshide of me.”

A door opened nearby, washing Main Street in a burst of music and laughter. “Yeah, next week,” laughed a man. “You tell her hi for me! All right.”

Isaac couldn’t see the man who came out of the Wagon Wheel, his view being blocked by Abraham Black, but he knew the voice: it was Mr. Clark. The door of the Wagon Wheel was not far; Mr. Clark could surely see at least the back of the stranger.

Relief trickled down Isaac’s spine as he heard Mr. Clark’s footsteps approaching. “Well hey there,” said Mr. Clark as he approached Black from behind. Black did not move until Mr. Clark was right behind him. Then he stepped smoothly into the shadow of an overhang to allow room for Mr. Clark to pass. “Good evening, shir,” he said, a trace of mockery in his voice.

Mr. Clark nodded. “Goo-” then he saw Isaac, frozen in fear. “Isaac? What are you doing out so late?” Mr. Clark had spent his whole life in Pikeston. He had been a football star back in the day, and as an adult he worked for a feed company and coached high school football. Isaac hadn’t talked to him much but he seemed like a Pretty Okay Guy all around, and Dwayne liked him, and Mr. Clark was big, and at that moment Isaac thought he had never been happier to see someone. Even if he had had a few.

The presence of Mr. Clark snapped Isaac out of his trance. He took another step back. Mr. Clark assessed the situation and turned to face Abraham Black, who now stood with his back to the window of the local thrift store. “Isaac, this guy botherin’ you?” he asked, placing himself a little more between Isaac and Black.

“Not at all, shir,” said Black. He was not much taller than Mr. Clark, but he seemed to loom in the shadow by the window. The bottom half of his coat still looked dusty and ragged in the streetlight, but the top half in the shadow was black as ink. “Jusht getting my bearingsh.”

Mr. Clark set his jaw and straightened up to his full height. “Maybe you’d better move along,” he said with an edge to his voice. Isaac took another small step back. Call the police—that’s what he should do. Sheriff Meyers was out of town but the deputies could get here quickly. Should he…run, and leave Mr. Clark? Did Mr. Clark see that Black had guns? What would Dwayne do? Well he wouldn’t be afraid, for one thing, so Isaac was already that far off track.

“No,” said Black. “I think I’ll shtay.” His lips continued to bleed onto his teeth. Even Mr. Clark seemed shaken by Black’s maniacal gaze leering out from the shadows.

“All right,” said Mr. Clark with resolve. He stepped forward and reached out to grab Black by the collar. “If that’s how—”

Black’s tattered coat flared sideways in a sudden gust of wind. But there was no wind. The streetlight above them went dark with a soft pop. Darkness bloomed in the sudden shadows, stretching out its filaments like a cancerous disease spreading in the blink of an eye. Mr. Clark’s sentence was cut short.

Isaac could not see what happened next; all before him lay in deep shadow. He could only think of Black , Jimothy’s crayon drawing. This was it. This was the shadow. He realized that his right hand was crushing that waxy paper in his pocket.

Something warm and wet sprayed across his face. Isaac’s foot, reaching backward, found only air. He fell off the curb and onto the icy street. He could not take his eyes off the mass of seething darkness in front of him. It hung like a void in reality. He reached a trembling hand to his face and felt the wetness. He smelled blood. He tasted it.

He heard footsteps, hollow, thudding, the sound of boots against cement, somehow magnified, resounding in the night. He thought he could almost see something in that impenetrable darkness. Something like a figure—menacing, terrifying.

A contrast caught his eye. Something white, brilliant white, up on the edge of the thrift store roof. A bird. An eagle?

The sight broke him out of his paralysis. He scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran. He expected the darkness to follow. He expected one of those huge silver revolvers to thunder; a bullet to tear through him. But it didn’t.

The shadowy streets blurred around him. He took a circuitous route because it seemed the most terrifying prospect imaginable that Abraham Black would follow him and discover where he lived. He looked behind him with every other step; he fled from darkness. Abraham Black did not appear.

Isaac reached his house and crouched behind the plastic recycling bin in the back for a few minutes before sneaking up the back way to his room. And when he desperately turned on every light in his room he saw that he had left a bloody handprint on the doorknob.

Dwayne had told Isaac about the terrible reality of evil. There was, Dwayne said, a darkness and monster in this world, but it was not some dragon in a cave. It was the darkness within Isaac’s own heart, and it must be fought continually, with diligence, every day. The beast, he said, was fought with love, and by love it would someday be slain.

But now Isaac doubted. He had seen another evil, and whatever it was, he was not strong enough to fight. It was a long time before he slept, and when he did, he thrashed with nightmares.