Dark Night (final thoughts)

DARK NIGHT
(Final Thoughts)

I drift here, all alone, staring into the dead of night.

2 hours earlier. January 21. 9:35 p.m.

It started out as simple static.
Radio and television alike hissed and crackled, heralding the approach of
something unknown. The very air seemed to vibrate around me as I lay on
my bed, awakened from a dream into what I now know as a nightmare.

Pulling back the covers and slumping groggily out of the side of the bed, the
carpet felt alive, like a sea of cockroaches and beetles, scuttling under foot,
each with its own tiny pin-prick of electricity.
Hopping backwards onto the bed, rubbing my feet, suddenly very much
awake, I reached down to pick up my slippers which I knew had rubber
soles.
A sudden crackling sound and I found my arm wheeling through the air,
fortunately with my slippers in tow. Putting them on I gingerly stepped
down upon the floor.

The feeling was still there, a constant movement, only this time I felt more
confident as I made my way to the window. Throwing back the curtains I
was met with an almost blinding light. It seemed as if all the streetlights were
set to a brilliance far greater than their actual capability. Something was
charging them to a luminescence reminiscent of the moon.

Raising my hand in a feeble attempt to shield my eyes, I gazed down at the
street below for any sign of my neighbours, or, perhaps even a workman
trying to sort out the problem, but no life seemed apparent at this time.
Surely someone must have woken as I had. Someone must have stirred,
the same as I...
No-one.

The street was empty. All the houses opposite were as illuminated as the
streetlamps dotted up and down the road.
It made no sense that there wasn’t at least one other living soul staring out
from their window, at the scene out in front of their very home, staring up
at me. How could it be that no-one else had woken to share in this strange
phenomena.
I had to go out, to see exactly what was occurring and why. To at least try
to attempt to rouse my neighbours. For some reason, I really didn’t want to
be alone at this time. Something didn’t feel right.

Outside, the atmosphere multiplied to the point that, even the air felt as if
it was vibrating around me, stimulating its way into my lungs, every breath
both, pain and pleasure.
Still, nobody present. Not one other soul set foot from their home.
It wasn’t as if it was particularly late at night. In fact, it was still early, not
even close to ten in the evening.
Where were the usual group of teenagers that gathered themselves on the
corner, trying to drink themselves into maturity. No sign of Margery, the
local busy-body, always poised at the front window, telephone in hand,
should she see anything untoward. No noise from the Hinkley’s. He was
a meek man, she the total opposite, the usual sounds of domestic abuse
and make-up sex there after, I always told myself that must be the reason
why he always went back to her.
Tonight, nothing.

Wondering whether I was still dreaming, knowing I wasn’t, I paced slowly
down the pavement.
Now standing in the middle of the road, I gazed all around. No sign of life
anywhere. The only signs that told of this world actually existing, were the
blinding lights and the increasing humming sound that filled the air.
With every passing moment it grew in intensity. I had to cover my ears with
both hands, as the pressure of the sound waves gave me to thinking that my
head would eventually explode.
Then, it stopped.
It was as if time itself had stopped.

The air now seemed breathable, having rapidly dropped in temperature.
It had happened so suddenly that, rather than making it easier, it almost took
my breath away. I slumped against a parked car, my legs about to collapse
from under me. I held on to the roof-rack steadying myself, and looked up
the street, into the hills beyond.
Something was different.

The earlier bright hillside, was now the colour of a winter’s night, as it should
have been. As opposed to the retina searing lights surrounding me.
Squinting into the distance, I noticed that It seemed to spread in mass as It
made Its way down the hillside toward me, leaving absolute nothingness in
Its wake. This was no ordinary blackout. I could sense the foreboding that
bore down with It.
I had to alert my neighbours. Wake them and bring them out to share in this
nightmare prevailing toward us.
It didn’t matter how many doors and windows I banged on. No-one came.
I was to face this alone. I just remember running. Running for my life, or what
was left of it. In the movies, when the impending doom of the disaster or the
unknown, looms after the characters, the faster they run, the faster the thing
comes.

That wasn’t the case with this.

It stayed at It’s own steady pace, like a dark fluid, an oil-slick, only this one
erasing all in It’s path. Only, there was no fluid or liquid, there was just a void.
Moving ever closer, I felt the air getting colder, uncomfortably cold, even for
a Winter’s night. I had made some distance between myself and It, but still It
came. Like the cloak of the grim reaper having cast itself over the entire town.
Eternal darkness.

My only thought was of getting to the lakeside.
It wasn’t far, just the next street, (that’s why I chose the house, to be near
the water), I had a small boat which I liked to take out when I could.
Just two oars, a tiny sail and a rudder, but she was enough for me.
Gently floating and fishing what was essentially an empty lake. I loved it.
But, that was in the past. Now the lake would be my salvation.
I knew that if I could just make it to the middle of the lake, this Thing may
then surround me, but I would be safe.

The boat was still there where I had earlier left it.
Nobody else had had the same idea as me.
The lake, like the streets, were bereft of life. How could this be so?
Someone had to have survived, like me.
No-one.

Untying the rope mooring the boat to the jetty, I now felt the chill upon my
back once more.
Looking behind, I could see the lights around me gradually fading.
I clawed desperately at the final knot, freeing the boat and pushing away
almost simultaneously.
Once off, I hurriedly locked the oars into place and could feel an immediate
sense of relief wash over me. I had made it.

I don’t know how long I have been drifting here.
It feels like hours, but, in reality, has probably only been minutes.
Time appeared to have stretched. Minutes would be hours, hours days, days
weeks, if only that time were awarded to us. But no. Time was about to run
out.
But not here. Not in the shimmering protection of the lake.

Shimmering?
I hadn’t noticed the slight rippling of the waters around me before. Nor the
rustling and bowing of the trees on the perimeter shoreline.
No, this could not be. It can’t be in the water. This is the one place of refuge
from whatever is on the way.
It can’t end this way. I have remained alive for this long. I can’t be the sole
survivor of this unearthly genocide, only to die now.
What would be the point of that?
What would be the point of mankind having ever existed at all?
It makes no sense.
Not just the lake, with its ebbing flows of oil-slick blackened waters, ever
approaching, but now the air itself, once again, formed a charcoal fog.

The final death shroud for the human race.