Maria sat on the couch reading a book. Even though the house where Maria enjoyed the comfortable couch was of alien design, it still sounded like a normal house. A storm raged outside; lightning brighted the sky and was quickly followed by the rumble of thunder that gave Maria mental images of boulders being smashed together, and the force of the collision sending shockwaves out through the land and air. It was a soothing soundscape, comfortable inside the house on the couch. She was reading a medical book, about procedures for removing parasites from the human body that she had found in the study of the homeowner, Dr. Thomas Eakran. She often thumbed through the material in his study; that was where Eakran brought his work home and she could review the research material that inspired his cutting edge work at his office where she assisted him.
The light was low in the room and Darker was lost in the screen of a laptop. He was shirtless and reading various accounts of the afterlife. In his previous life, Darker stayed away from technology. Technology just created a kind of paper trail, which was kryptonite to drug dealers. He barely knew how to use a computer and Maria made fun of him as she taught him.
It was a quiet night inside the Eakran household; the doctor was working late and neither of the people who lived with him expected to see him until the next day. The storm raged outside and the sound was starting to lull Maria to sleep. Then suddenly there was a knock at the door.
To understand the strangeness of hearing a knock at the door, you must understand that the home of Dr. Thomas Eakran has cloaking technology that makes it invisible to outside observers, and this technology was always activated.
Maria and Darker looked to one another and Maria stood and approached the door. Suddenly there were three more hard knocks, and then there was a lightning strike, followed by a rumble of thunder.
“I’ll get it,” Darker said as he stood and grabbed a shirt.
“Who could it be?” Maria asked, and she remembered the cameras all around the house. Just when she was about to bring up the cameras on the large screen TV in the living room, the knocking came again, and this time it was frantic, like someone was trying to bang the door off its hinges.
Darker rushed to the door and Maria followed him. When he swung it open, there was no one there.
“What’s going on?” Darker asked.
“Maybe the technology of the house is going haywire. Let’s check the control room.”
Dr. Eakran had showed Maria the control room of the house that doubled as a panic room. Inside the room there was a wall of panel screens that showed views from all the cameras positioned inside and outside the home. There was a computer with a large screen along another wall with a huge panel of buttons and controls. Lights blinked on and off, but it looked just as Maria remembered it had looked the last time she was in the control room. Everything seemed normal.
“What’s going on with that?” Darker asked.
Maria turned to the wall of panel screens and looked up at the screen that Darker stared at. It showed the view at the front door. There were bright yellow sparks that seemed to be swirling like a cyclone stirred them on the doorstep. The knocking came again and they both stared at the screen confused as the yellow sparks churned like a tornado. They went to the door and opened it again and were both shocked to see nothing.
“What is going on?” Maria asked.
“I see it,” Darker said squinting and he put a hand outside the door and moved it slowly around. “They’re so faint, but I can see them.”
“What is it?”
“Something from somewhere else. It maybe here for me.”
“Is it a ghost?” Wendy asked.
“I don’t know what it is.”
Suddenly, Darker was jerked from the house and he went flying out into the rain. Maria ran after him and grabbed his ankle as he flew and they both yelled with surprise and terror as they were swept through the raging storm outside.
I only came here for the soul, they both heard in their minds. I do not need the woman.
“What do you want with him?” Maria screamed as she held on for dear life. She didn’t know what she was talking to, but she figured it was the reason she and Darker were flying through the rain.
If you hang on, you will see soon enough, and you will not be happy that you did.
“Maria, don’t let go,” Darker said with concern as he realized their altitude.
They flew for almost an hour and the muscles in Maria’s hands and forearms ached, but she held on tight to Darker’s ankle. He couldn’t feel it; Darker couldn’t feel or control his body that was stretched out like something dragged him by the arm. He could only look down and see Maria struggling to hold on.
When they finally landed, Maria could not move her arms, they were numb and she felt needles shooting through out.
“Where are we?” Maria groaned.
Darker did not respond and he stood before Maria like a statute.
I intend to use this soul to attract more curses. I’m binding them to the souls that were displaced by his resurrection, and I’m letting them loose on the living.
“Why?” Maria asked the voice that she heard in her mind.
Because the living must pay. You all live your meaningless, fleeting lives and waste time, and all the while the maker is fascinated by your every move. The maker created me too and practically forgot my existence. The maker will never ignore me again.
Maria yelled “stop!” very loudly, hoping to stop time like she had before. But nothing seemed to happen.
You are out of your league, human. Run along now before this becomes frightening.
Maria felt helpless and she wandered away from Darker and found her cell phone in her pocket. She called Dr. Eakran because she was at a loss for what to do next.
“The tracker in your phone says you’re in Charleston, SC,” Eakran said. “I’ll head there now, I can be there in about thirty minutes in my traveller.”
Maria was relieved when Eakran landed near her in his pod traveller that was like a flying car.
“There’s a voice,” Maria said. “It’s using Darker for something. He won’t move.”
Eakran approached the stone-still Darker, and the yellow sparks issued from him. Maria could see them from a distance, like Darker was shooting off sparks of electricity, and when Eakran was close, the sparks hit him and sent him flying. He landed at Maria’s feet.
“It’s like something’s using him,” Eakran groaned, “channeling those sparks through his body.”
“We have to help him,” Maria said with determination in her voice. “We have to figure this out.”
PRL Serials 