Mark Jefferson sat alone, nursing a small scotch as he stared pointedly at the staging area, rolling that dark liquid idly as he mind ran away with him. There wasn't much else he could do; Nathan had been taken care of, one less problem to deal with... now? He just had to wait it out.
The Storm.
It had come out of nowhere, but Mark felt no stirring in his gut, no ominous tremor despite it having forced him beneath ground... why should he? It would come, it would snuff out a few lives, big deal... his only regret is that he couldn't be out there. Taking photographs of it as it swept through the town like a scythe.
Oh such sweet moments he could capture tonight, and what freedom he would have to do so was thrilling. Nathan was gone, and so too was his infuriating whale songs... Mark had felt a stone from around his neck lifted; no longer would that troubled mimic darken his doorstep to appease daddy's wishes. No... Nathan would never be found, Mark had seen to that, and he grinned at the image of Sean Prescott, the Godfather of Arcadia Bay sat in his castle in Pan Estates, powerless... and heirless.
Oh what a beautiful tragedy, but that's what you get for being an ignorant bourgeoisie prick.
With a chuckle he gently tipped back some of the strong, burning ichor down his throat, and continued to stare at the clinically white wall. It was making him itch, forcing him to spy his beautiful collection of red binders. A cornucopia of misery encapsulated in scarlet.
Little pieces of time, Hitchcock once said. Mark smiled, and smiled wide, feeling something warm and nostalgic bloom in his gut as his thoughts ventured back. God, what he wouldn't give for the ability to just... step inside those frames. To relive those artful moments, where corruption would be forever immortalized in black and white. High contrast suffering. He grinned wolfishly, helping himself to another sip as he flicked through the files of his mind and vacantly hummed John Lennon.
After a moment however, the taste turned sour in his mouth, victory now bitter on his vile tongue.
Had it truly been a victory? Mark's wish, no, his need, his goal in life... was to capture innocence- that elusive doe, scampering through the dark forests, ever elusive. And it had always evaded him.
Frustrated he ground his thumb against his glass, threatening to crack it under the weight of his own trapped thoughts, compounded by his entombment beneath the earth, forced to hide from the wrath of God outside.
Why? Why couldn't he capture it? He had bend it, and break it, catch it all on film. Why wouldn't it give itself up for him? For the camera?
It was selfish to him, to horde such beauty away from the lens, away from him. He had come so close... so close he could taste the purity. So sweet was it that it overpowered the flavor of his drink and threatened to drive him mad.
There had been Kate Marsh... oh, what a forlorn little angel that one was. So much potential... a masterpiece in the making that girl could've been.
She reeked of it, of innocence that was... it drew Mark in like a Moth to the flame. At first, anyway. There was no denying that the girl was a photographer's dream... the perfect model. So pliant, malleable. Even without the... encouragement... his needles provided, he had her in the palm of his hand- ready to snuff out with the closing of a fist.
Because you see, that was the thing about reeking of something... soon, it becomes overpowering, and when that happens it becomes unbearable, intolerable; it did not surprise Jefferson to learn that the girl had attempted to meet her maker, hell, the man had placed an internal bet in regards to it happening! But things don't always turn out the way we expect, do they?
Lowly he grumbled, he owed himself a dollar. I mean, what were the odds? Everything was angled perfect, the critics had lined up to watch Kate prepare for her ultimate piece... and leap into history a muse, an Ophelia drenched in rue. Only she caved at the last moment, and lost her shot at immortality.
Such a shame.
"That was how it should've ended... strange that she came down. Well, without gravity's assistance" he snorted "That was truly surprising..." with a low and unamused chortle he finished his glass, only to fill it once more. Mark always had a little decanter on stand by, stuffed away in the drawer for those long nights developing film, or simply walking down memory lane with a binder. Some people liked to play checkers, others took walks or knitted, but Mark had more refined ways to spend his time. Life had been good to him and he was keen to savor all the moments it provided him, after all; time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
He sat himself back down with crossed legs, throwing an arm across the back of that stylish couch after settling that decanter on the table while he couldn't help but return to his prior thoughts. There was no escaping the fact he wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile, so why not enjoy the time with a drink? This had been the only time in recent history that he could actually sit and reflect... thank you, Storm... but he couldn't work it out. What could've brought Kate back from the edge? Pulled her away from apotheosis like that? What could Max have said?
Max... Mark's tongue quickly ran across his lips.
Kate had been ruined, so deliciously corrupted or so he thought... barely clinging on to her innocence and life while the school itself had seemed to ally itself with his intentions- and no surprise there either... Blackhell, he recalled some students call it. Appropriate. But he could always rely on his least favorite groupie to test the wills of his quarry without prompt, she had proven good at it too. Mark had to give Nathan and Victoria both their credit, insecure harpies they were... they really did well on Kate, breaking her down like that; the viral video was a stroke of genius from Victoria's part. Bravo. But In the end, it had been Kate herself who had failed to impress by not taking that final shot, and refusing the call of the void.
Still... maybe there was hope. Wryly his lips curled and he hummed in contemplation as he swirled his drink and let his head tilt backwards, heavy with thought.
"Perhaps I'll have to visit Kate, test her faith again... if she survives the weather, that is" Darkly he smiled as his imagination ran away with him, but for now Kate would have to wait, because Mark had his eyes set on the true prize.
He stared once again at the stage and found his guts turning with want, appalling him to his core to be so filled with inspiration and be completely impotent to do anything about it... and do you know what made it worse? That now with this infernal storm bearing down around his ears, he genuinely feared his chance may be gone forever.
A chance to capture his muse. A chance to capture Her.
Maxine Caulfield. He bit his lip almost lecherously, never had a girl ensnared him so... though few had come close. So timid, but so talented... he held her with the reverence of a vestal virgin- divine, and undefiled by the world. How he longed to pose her, to capture her innocence and snap those freckles in high contrast. He giggled, it was almost like a schoolboy crush.
Yet fate had decided it was not to be... or rather, Maxine's growing confidence had done that instead. Had she never heeded mother's tales about curiosity and cats? It was a pity in the truest sense of the word... because now, the art he wished to make could never come to fruition.
You see you can't rush art, that was a fundamental rule. It came and it went, as ephemeral as life sapped away from an overdose. Now he would be only able to snap a few pictures, a few desperate attempts to capture grace... and that would be it. Then he would have to put her to sleep, and used up he would have to discard her; wrap her in plastic and bury her somewhere far away, where other snooping morons couldn't discover her. Just one more missing girl poster.
It made him sad to a very small degree; more so now that even that pathetic attempt to capture some of Max's light would likely be dashed to the rocks by the Storm.
They could've done beautiful things together... but Max had pissed it all away chasing a failed muse. What a waste.
Jefferson nearly snarled, grunting in distaste as he took a mouthful of scotch and swilled it around his mouth, trying to drown out his disappointment, and his agitation.
Once again, something else Rachel Amber had ruined. Even from beyond the grave, the girl was still interfering with his life's work... he had to give her credit for that. But she had always been determined, he supposed.
Misguided, but determined.
The lights of the Dark Room waned with strain, and Mark glanced around with suspicious intrigue as they dimmed and brightened in a slow staggered pattern as though trying to catch their steady rhythm once more.
The Storm must be really hitting the Bay... glad I'm in here. Thank you Sean Prescott.
Smirking he watched as the lights returned to full, and found himself breathing a quiet sigh of relief despite himself. Why did he feel relieved? The Dark had never bothered him before, and yet... something felt strange, and unwelcome charge lingered in the air.
Something was different and he could sense it, and the tension he now felt in his bones dragged him from his baleful reverie as he leaned forward, clasping his glass in both hands as he thumbed the rim of it almost anxiously.
Wait... was that camera always pointing at me?
It felt like swallowing a stone, the lump in his throat dragging slowly as he found himself staring down the lens of a camera on a tripod... aimed squarely at him. He could've sworn it had been pointing at the photo-shoot area, he hadn't moved it otherwise.
Maybe it was Nathan... yes, had to be him, little rich kid brat, fucking with my set up. There mere thought of it had Jefferson's blood boiling, evaporating all but the purest grain of something dire he couldn't shake. Like the camera he now noticed staring at him, it almost felt as though he was not alone, like he was sat in the center of a silent crowd.
It drew his eyes about the room, his legs aching to stand but he would not cave to such basic fight or flight. The lights had gone out, boo hoo... there was a Storm, electrical faults happen! You have never squealed when there were blackouts, so get your act together Mark!
It was beneath him to let such childish things bother him... but his ire remained focused on that out of place tripod. It was grounding to an extent, and with an irritated grunt he adjusted it with one sharp turn- pointing its eye back to where it should be, locked squarely on the regretfully empty model's space.
Had he noticed that little misalignment before Nathan had been dealt with? Well, it wouldn't have been as quick as it had been. A bullet to the head would've been too good. No one fucks with Mark Jefferson's set up. Nobody. Nettled he took a calming breath as he leaned back in the chair, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. Ugh... it was such a small thing to get irked over, but he felt like he was going mad locked down here.
It was different than usual, it had been hours with no reprieve... just locked down there among his work,with no option to leave. The Storm seemed content to keep him confined, much to his chagrin... fucking nature, always fucking up his days. Mother Nature... typical woman, he mused, a vitriolic grunt pushing through his nose as he rubbed his temples, trying to ease the pressure in his skull.
It was in moments like this that Mark wondered why he stuck around... if his work was really worth the stress this accursed town put on him. Prescotts and one side, the groupies on the other- neither truly cared for art, and pursued him without end. God, he swore that he knew this hick town would be the death of him; so much stupidity, so many morons... it was barely worth the Dark Room and the liberties it afforded him. But we all have to make sacrifices, I suppose.
Sacrifices.
Mark's eyes eased open, and his heart seized at the vision before him... or more accurately, the lack of one. He was swimming in Inky darkness, so palpable he could not see his hand a mere inch from his face. Damnit all! The Storm must've fucked with the power.
"Fuck sake!" he spat, feeling his heart rate climb just a little as he sat there, waiting for the power to roll on back in. Seriously, if Prescott couldn't even ensure the damn bunker's lights work, what the hell was even the poi-
Scrape.
Mark felt his blood turn cold in the nothingness, and his body shot rigid instinctively, becoming as still as any statue worth their salt as his eyes flicked back forth in the black. There was no sound down here, nothing, just pristine and meditative silence- not even the Storm's vicious howling made it down here!
So just what the hell was that noise!?
Jefferson fumbled quickly, dropping his glass with a clang to the coffee table as his fingers reached for a phone that simply wasn't there anymore. Oh come on! His fingers danced, growing in speed and want as they futilely searched. Where is it!?
Fighting a rising apprehension building like layers of dirt on top of him, his hands frantically searched, sending items loudly clattering to the earth as he hunted for it almost desperately. It couldn't have gone far, he had only put it down not long ago! It couldn't have just sprouted legs and walked away!
A dull click thunk of the lights activating announced the return of power, as the illumination flickered and hummed before they regained their silent and steady radiance. Why did he find himself breathing easy? Sardonically he laughed to himself, at himself, feeling a warm surge as a foreign sense of trepidation gradually faded away. Oh, and he spotted his phone!
"Come here you little bastard... what're you doing down there?" he plucked his phone from the ground, leaving the rest of the tumbled debris exactly where it was. Meh, he'd clean it later... he was more interest in a text from Mr. Prescott. A vicious smile bloomed.
Sean Prescott
"Jefferson, where is my son? Is he with you?"
Mark couldn't stop himself from erupting into a laugh, bring his glass to his lips as he took his sweet time to formulate an oh so informative reply.
Mark Jefferson
"No, Mr. Prescott... I am not his father, merely his tutor. I hope he is well, the weather is frightful."
Casting his phone to the cushion beside him he basked in his own comedic genius, relishing in a chortle as he pictured the decrepit old fart's face now, pretending to actually care about his son. I did more a job than Prescott, Mark knew... and I don't even care about the boy. He had been tempted to reference a house potentially falling on the boy, giggling at the images of Oz it conjured, but thought such a thing might to too heavy handed.
Tipping the glass back, grinning broadly, Mark's eyes lazily traversed the room... and stopped dead, his grip on the glass slackening enough that it fell from his fingers like an apple from a tree, and exploded on the floor. It didn't matter, Mark was too far gone- fighting himself trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
No... no that's not...
Mark was alone, sealed in his little chamber of secrets... there was no fucking way this could be happening... but there it was. Despite all known laws of reality, he was looking an impossibility.
The camera had moved, the whole tripod in fact... staring him down like the barrel of a gun. His heart skipped a beat and he squirmed- actually squirmed- beneath the weight of its attention.
And then it started to record.
His legs had him upright in an instant, kicking away the camera with an instinctive boot to the stilts as he bolted to his feet with phone in hand before his brain could truly comprehend what he had just seen. I moved that camera myself! This isn't possible! Mark was trying his best not to shake, dragging his gaze like a rake across the entirety of his lair, combing for details, things out of place... What was he expecting to see?
"Who's there!?" he felt stupid the moment he bellowed those words, but what else could be be? What other logical explanation could there be? It had to be an intruder... somehow... it just had to be! But even that vomited questions he couldn't answer... the biggest being HOW. Fucking HOW!?
His phone vibrating in his grip startled him... almost catapulting him out of his skin as one new message had come. Prescott, undoubtedly... and Mark felt a sickening sense of relief, it brought him back to reality to know that he was likely going to get his ass chewed out by the man who built his little palace of torturous pleasure. But when he actually checked the screen and the color drained from his skin, and quite honestly he wished he had not. For one painful moment, he could not breathe.
Rachel Amber.
IMPOSSIBLE. It was the first thought in his head, rampaging and dragging all other thoughts with it. No, this couldn't be happening. Rachel was dead, the phone destroyed... there was no way in hell this could actually be happening; he thumbed open the message despite himself:
"I am lost to time,
But I am not alone here,
And neither are you"
Mark felt sick, and a tremor ran through his being. Instinctively he ran to a nearby drawer in long strides, yanking free a gun with a faintly trembling grip as he turned on a dime.
"The fuck!?" the sight of something almost had him firing as it floated into the corner of his eye... this was madness, but he could've sworn he saw someone. We all have those moments, the vision of something, or someone, stood to the edge of your reality... and vanishing the moment you seek to train your eye upon it. Mark had seen just that... and it had been lingering in his periphery, staring down at photos scattered across his desk... or so it looked.
The desk was saturated in those awful images he was so proud of... like a window to the abyss. For that moment he saw the shape it had been staring in this pool from which so much suffering had been encapsulated in a physical piece of time. But then it was gone, lost the moment a solid gaze flew its way, swept away with the momentum- taking with it the lights.
Not again!
Mark back up violently despite himself, knocking over kit without care and ensnaring his feet in a tangled mass of wires. Fuck, fuck! The word cycled his brain, this was all too much to process with one sense stolen... but he has a flash of realization. Unlocking his phone he shined its light out into the pitch black of the Dark Room... trying to peer into the darkness with his phone's light.
Never had he seen such darkness in all his life. It seemed alive, teeming with snow flurries of shadow that seemed to flow- a literal black out. The blackness was like a fog, so dense the light seemed to travel only a mere few feet before it was devoured entirely. There was no hope for illumination in this place now- he was barely six feet from the couch and he could barely make out the coffee table!
"Where are you!? Huh!? You think this is funny you little shit!? Huh!?" Did I just... did i just hear a giggle...? No, better to deny it. He was scared in spite of himself, better he was imagining it. It was quiet, ethereal... like wind through an empty church "Turn the lights on, or I swear, someone is getting shot- I swear to god!"
A bright flash lit up the room for an instant, blinding him before the dark engulfed him again. Instinctively he fired, squeezing the trigger at the source only to hear the bullet bury itself into a wall. There it was again, that breezing sound mistakable for tittering... but it was accompanied by a sound Mark knew all too well, both simultaneously nostalgic and threatening.
The wind up of a manual camera.
That son of a bitch...! No, this could not stand! This was Mark Jefferson's space! This was his sanctuary, the one place he could be who he was! He was the photographer, here, he was god! He would not be the model!
He couldn't determine the origin of the sound, the insidious winding in its slow, methodical draw out seemed to come from all around and his heart was pounding hard against his sternum as he stared frantically into the dark that seemed to swim around him. He could make out shapes... vague masses moving in the torrents of the streaming shadows without true form; his eyes wanted to morph them into figures, grant them true shape, something he could aim at and eliminate.
Another flash blinded him and another shot was fired in kind, but he had not thought ahead. Fear got the best of him as he attempt to make a break for it... and forgot about the wires that had tasseled themselves about his legs. In an instant they drew tight like cheese wire, stopping him dead mid lunge. The noose about his ankles snapped taut, and he couldn't stop himself from hitting the floor, knocking the wind and some sense from his body as he head collided with a heavy thunk off the earth.
There was a brief moment of respite, of a familiar dark he was comfortable in. Had he passed out? He wasn't sure... but his head was bust open, he could feel it as he touched the throbbing pain on his temple, only to pull back wet fingers.
Another volley came, a quick succession of five, maybe six snaps... their shutters loud and clear, and the flash of their cameras was brighter than ever. Then it came again... the sound of that god awful winding that he just couldn't locate. Oh fuck, his head hurt so much... the light of their weapons were like flashbang grenades, brighter and more intense now. Were they closer, whoever they were? No, and the realization of the truth hit him like a whip-crack, sending a fearful jolt of anger through him as it finally dawns on him, as he finally deciphers where he fell. Fucking pieces of shit... no... no they can't honestly...!
But they can, and they did... he knows it for a fact as manages to make out the silhouettes of his lighting rigs with the last clap of light, stood over him, looming insidiously. Staging him.
No... this isn't right... this is my space, MINE!
It was an unwelcome sensation, to be powerless, knowing he now lay in a heap at the mercy of those cameras like the many girls he had used in the pursuit of his art.
Was this what it was like?
No, what he did was beautiful- it had to be done. It had to be.
Mark felt his heart surge, a mixture of terror, indignation, and anger melded together finally exploding as he reached for his gun strewn not far from him. He would show them, he would show whoever it was messing with him... and then he would photograph their dead bodies, and mount the portraits of their deaths on his wall. He wasn't above trophies... he loved a good Doe hunt, after all.
Grasping his gun he went wild, letting out a hateful holler as he just kept squeezing the trigger, reckless with abandon as he fired into the blackness relentlessly in wide arches, making sure to cover everything. It was almost cathartic, each bullet fired like a demon exorcised... and he didn't stop, not once, until he finally heard the gun click. Spent. Each illumination of the muzzle flash revealed something, a shape darting out of view, slipping from the light and into darkness... but never once did he see a person.
Now there were no more flashes, no more windings... just silence, broken up by his own wretched and needy breaths. Jefferson wanted to find comfort in it, to return to the quiet he loved... but this wasn't comforting... in fact, it was the exact opposite. He felt as though he sat in a void, falling through the infinite... there was silence, and then there was true silence. Utter nothing. This was that. It was maddening.
No... it didn't matter, it was silent, big deal- he won, the problem was solved... and clutching his empty weapon he took a moment to try and calm the war drum of his heart. What was going on? What the hell was all this? Why now? He couldn't fathom it... but he had bigger fish to fry. His feet were going numb.
"Oh, Christ!" he ditched the spent gun, the barrel still scorching from its expenditure... it was no use now, he had to get the fuck out of here! But that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, tied like a hog as he was. Threading his fingers with a grunt of effort under the cables, he tugged hard on the wires that bound him. Their tightness reminded him of bondage, the intentional restrictiveness of it... but that couldn't be the case, his stupid ass had just managed to get tangled up in them in his own pathetic fear. He glowered, loathing himself for a moment.
Fucking hell was it dark... he couldn't see a damn thing! This won't do, he announced to himself... and patting around he felt for his phone, he unlocked it the moment he came upon it, snaking his digits around it greedily. Great, a cracked screen... shit, worry about that later!
Sitting it beside him, screen up, it cast a diminutive pool of grainy light in a small space around him. It was muted against the umbra fog, as though it was feeding on the glow, withering it, but it afforded a flimsy spotlight around him... one that he noticed was slowly shrinking centimeter by centimeter. He had to act fast... because he didn't want to imagine what would happen if that perimeter of nothing encompassed him again.
The bindings would not quit, the knot of cables had managed to coil around his ankles like strangling vines. He had to growl with effort, his fingers threatening to buckle with pain, before the mass finally released just one of his legs with the utmost reluctance.
"Oh, thank god!" Mark uttered, painfully aware of his own relief as he managed to get a foot free. He had to flex his toes, fearing they were going to fall off as felt blood rush to the appendage now rife numb with the most unbearable of pins and needles; the last binding would not quit though, wrapped about his entrapped ankle like barbed wire and biting just as deep... he had flashes of duct tape, of the red marks it left if he was careless and strapped a girl too tightly. It made him shudder, the shoe being on the other foot as it was... consternation had gripped him now, thrashing as he tried without avail to loosen the choking jaw of those wires "Just let me go..!"
It wasn't a plea to anyone, or anything... it was just the impotent cry of a helpless animal, wounded and afraid. But that didn't stop the universe, and his phone vibrated in response. Mark's eyes clapped upon it, going dead as the darkness around him immediately felt as though it was growing heavier, swelling with the return of the crowd. He didn't want to look... but that nefarious curiosity had caught him like the wires had.
Rachel Amber
"Do you remember when I said that?"
Mark lost it at that. Storm be damned, he had to get out! Desperately he ripped at the wire that held him, clawing like a coyote. It seemed to bite deeper in response.
Movement grew in the corner of his eye... another specter walking through the void into his peripheral- only this time, it stepped visibly into the light, and did not move one inch when his eyes slowly panned in terror to witness it in full. It remained steadfast. There, stood on the edge of the dying circle of light, were a pair of dirty converse from which a pair of legs ascended up into the nothingness where the light could not penetrate. But Mark recognized the legs, as pock marked and speckled in grave moss as they were. He could never forget that tattoo, that angry dragon anchored onto what was once a beautiful patch of fair skin on her calf- now a ruined mockery of what it was.
The phone vibrated again, Mark had to look... far too terrified to look up, imagining what he might see staring back at him, the impossibility of it.
Rachel Amber
"Why won't you look at us? We inspired you once, we've all come to inspire you again.
We've come to fulfill your wish."
What...? What is she... wait- All...?
Like the opening of a door his thoughts seemed to be an invite- another pair of feet stepped into the light, one foot clad in a worn out sneaker, the other barefoot and black toed. His phoned buzzed anew:
Megan.
No... no this is all wrong...!
Another buzz, another set of feet, more rotten that the last... barely held together by the ripped tights that seemed embedded into the decayed skin; Ashley.
On her heels along came Brittany, her dolly shoes once pristine now battered and destroyed.
Then it was Suzie, sweet Suzie... still wrapped in her pointe shoes as she approached the lip of the light on tiptoes creaking like wood, those long ballet trained limbs moving with the slow and aberrant grace of a daddy longlegs. With each new set of legs came another name, and a new wave of that stench... the stench of rot and death. They closed in with gradually quickening pace, even more names bloomed, walking from binder and grave to to edge of his spotlight... too fast to read their messages had he been so inclined... but he wasn't.
He could feel them all, staring at him... his spent muses, all watching him. They could see him, plain as day in that light... but all he could see was their feet. He was too scared to look up... shaking as his breath turned to white mist as the temperature slowly fell.
Mark was too busy trying not to scream, splitting the flesh of his fingers as he tried to pry himself free of his cable-tied prison once and for all as the crowd grew around him like vultures. The intensity of their gaze was far stronger than any camera, and what were they capturing? He dared not picture it... especially not now he was utterly defenseless. He kept his head down, praying for the first time in what felt like forever; praying that he would not look up.
Like meeting the eyes of Medusa, he feared that if he were meet their gaze, the petrification that followed would be the truest death of him. And then what would happen? Dying alone in this purgatorial pit... what would become of his ghost? He dared not think about it... the idea of fate when surrounded by the dead seemed crueler than even he was capable of.
He knew now where he was, what this heart of darkness was... a nightmare, in the most real sense of the word. I just have to wake up, its all I have to do, I just have to wake up! Please let me wake up I don't want to be here anymore!
With blood slicked fingers the bindings finally weakened, just enough to allow him some give. The crimson blood his hands were drenched in looked more akin squid ink in the blackness... lubricating those cables enough that he managed with a deep roar of effort to slip his undoubtedly black and blue foot free of its stranglehold. Adrenaline surged, his heart practically exploding with animalistic ferocity as he grabbed a nearby tripod with both agonized hands.
"Leave me alone!" he swung with everything he had, the body of the stand a bat in his hand- it was time for these bad memories to just... just... shut the fuck up, okay!? He screamed out, expecting to meet the heavy resistance of a body struck, lusting for it, wanting to beat the figures into submission as his urge to survive drove him on. But he was greeted only by the sudden vision stripping whiteness as the lights of the Dark Room finally ascended all at once, routing the nightmare mist to the shadows where they belonged.
Jefferson's blind swing was too heavy to stop with his battered legs, and the calamitous force of it merely passed through where he knew a body should have been as the momentum carried him with it by the scruff of his neck. He let out a cry of helpless surprise as he was thrown with the reckless force of his own body... sending himself crashing through the wooden bulk of his coffee table, breaking glass and, undoubtedly, bone. All he could do was scream in anguish, feeling the fresh pockets of warm wetness leaking from fresh words on his back, which burned from the alcohol that was now all over... in the cuts gashes left by splintered chunks of wood and knives of glass. Never had he been in such pain in all his life. He couldn't move, in too much agony to even squirm for a moment; his feet were partly dead, aching as they slowly regained their life... but his fingers were cut to ribbons, oozing blood.
Mark wanted to scream more, vent the distress he was in... but he refused, Mark Jefferson wouldn't give the universe the satisfaction.
The shock of the lights returning had traumatized his eyes, stealing their clarity; he could barely see anything, merely shapes and overexposed light diffusing edges to vagueness.
The figures were gone, but got no peace from that. Things were spiraling out of control, he didn't like that, hated it, feared it... but what could he do? Panting he practically whimpered as he forced himself upright, bones clicking nastily as he picked himself from the ruins of his table... spying the blood trail he had left behind and the little pool that had formed beneath him.
He felt broken, speared with wooden shards and glass he limped towards a cabinet as he took a moment to collect himself; fear stilled coursed through him, and he quickly looked around him with the vigor and edge of a paranoid man... but there were no dead girls to spot.
Yet, in the blurred scope of his sight there seemed to be too much red... dispersed with masses of white and black blobs. He grimaced, rubbing some clarity back into his sockets with deep cleaves of the bloodless curve of his wrists. The world came back to sharp clarity... and with it came the explanation. His jaw dropped.
His binders where everywhere. Open wide as their contents were spilled across the bunker as though they had been violently hurled around. Long since dead faces were staring at him from every page, his angels, his muses, bound and drugged. He could've gotten lost in the glory of it, surrounded by his achievements... but he was too engrossed for that. Instead he just fought back bemused and frightened babbling... which were silenced the moment he saw photos he had never taken.
They sat on the couch like some kind of twisted casting call.
Faces, truly dead faces... a macabre assortment of almost twenty headshots, eyes bulging, some missing or closed... but all somewhere between emaciated and and a home to worms, frozen forever in a silent postmortem scream. Imprisoned in the monochrome photograph. Mark began to shake his head in disbelief... But front and center? Well... the minute he saw it, Mark finally snapped, and wailed as he ran on what felt like shattered ankles to the coded vault door.
He saw a once beautiful face wrapped in plastic, now faded like a time worn photograph. Golden blond was now wiry and pale, and those plastic shrouded features once full and pink had turned gaunt and sallow beneath the earth. The eyes, oh god the eyes... the lids were saturated in black and shriveled to near nonexistence, those orbs had sunken into her skull, dry as marbles and glassed over with milky ivory. But it wasn't this that frightened Mark, no... it was the fact that those dead eyes, the dead eyes of Rachel Amber, rolled in their sockets and looked at him.
He cried out as one of the fluorescent lights burst above him, showering him in fiery agony as he staggered to escape... but those sparks caught in an instant... just as soon as they touched the scotch that bathed his floor. It breathed to life like a bad spirit, spreading from Polaroid to Polaroid then, and like a chain of firecrackers the flames erupted and spread akin to weeds.
Mark didn't care as he hobbled desperately to the door, stumbling to the ground briefly before he powered on relentlessly. In truth he hadn't realized... it was only when he hit a door that wouldn't budge, and the glow begin to bloom, that he finally noticed.
Noticed his life's work was being rendered to naught but ash.
Even in his most direst of moments, he couldn't help but let out a cry of despair. Everything was gone... there was no redemption, the flames were all consuming, a corruption that was seeking to snuff out every piece of life it could find.
And what a coincidence... there was only one living thing down in that bunker, and upon appreciating that, he abandoned his desire to save his art, and took a grip of the door.
The smoke was rising, rolling across the ceiling like a poisonous cloud... Mark coughed, spluttered even as he struggled now not only with the door, but with breathing. His eyes stung viciously, his cracked glasses fogged almost to the point of uselessness... but he didn't need his glasses to hear something that renewed his panic like a shot to the heart.
The plumes of smoke brought with it the shuffling of feet from deep in the bowels of the fire, the breeze of that haunting chuckle touching his ears as the photos granted the flames passage across the Dark Room, bathing in in the hot, amber glow of retribution. The shuffling was growing louder, he tried to ignore it as he struggled with the door, giving it all he had to try and open it.
Please, please just open, please! Mark peered back, and wished he had not... for now in the miasma of the billowing fire he could see figures, distinct forms flickering in the heat... girls. They had no detail, too bathed in the choking smoke as they drifted closer with eyes shining like white pin pricks in the cloth of night. He recognized a couple, the fear distracting his mind with the impossibility of it.
The fire was all consuming, Mark could barely breathe now and his lungs screamed for air... the Dark Room had become like Hell, and from it's poisonous womb came a new figure, materializing from the black clouds as an acrimonious shadow- one he knew immediately from the feathered earring dangling from her left ear.
"Rachel..." He began in a whisper of disbelief "N-No... No! Someone, please! Someone let me out!" he pounded on the door with renewed will, trying not to peer over his shoulder as he felt the crowd begin to descend upon him... a new more boyish figure beside the specter of the girl with the feather.
Their hands reached out, a small choir of indistinct sorrowful voices beginning to grow louder as their dead fingers slowly closed the space between them and the source of their suffering.
He could see them, the shadows of their unwanted hands coming towards him... and with one final burst of diminished strength a miracle was born- the door was torn open, but what came next happened instantly. A deafening boom, a solar flare, a whooshing wind that hit like a truck, a brief but intense pain, and then nothing.
There was no telling how much time had passed after that... and Mark woke up smoldering... cast ten feet from what was now a burning hole in the ground as cold needles of rain pelted his roasted back. He could only manage the most choked of groans, his lungs too in pain to do much else, and too winded by the force of the back draft that had just cleared him of the hell he sought to escape.
He hardly noticed that the barn was gone, swept away on the winds to leave a clearing circled by the jagged perimeter of where it's walls once stood. Jefferson forced himself to his knees, doing his best to ignore the broken, blistered, and blackened skin on his back as the rain lashed it like the cat of nine-tails... but it didn't matter, because he saw it. He saw it.
Mother of God...
Mark had never seen something so majestic, so awe-striking, and so utterly terrifying in all his life... craning his neck to take in the true height and girth of it... the scope of which stole what little breath from his lungs he had managed to salvage.
The Tornado.
Truly it was a finger of God, which for whatever rhyme or reason had placed its tip upon the map of the world... and crushed where it landed into nothing. It had stolen his senses... and had it not been for the feeling of a hand tapping his shoulder, he may well have never moved. There wasn't much else to do when one witnessed the end of the world... maybe those Vortex Club parties were onto something, he mused bitterly.
The lightning is what truly brought him back to reality... or rather the twin shadows stretching over him it cast for a frightening glimmer of an instant.
Fuck...
Mark turned in the mud... staring up as two specters announced by the Storm; the smoldering orange glow of Hell illuminating their backs. Their faces were masked in darkness... but he knew them. It wasn't possible, but he knew them. That earring and that varsity jacket were unmistakable.
There was no running now, Mark was too broken up to do that... he feared his body was shutting down, as the pain was beginning to slowly fade away.
"I'm Sorry... Please... I only...!" Mark spat with strangled vocal chords as he noticed the others... standing among trees that ringed where the barn once stood. Watching. Expecting something. He snapped, his pride rousing hatefully
"Actually... no. I'm not sorry. Is that what you want!? Do you want me to say sorry!?" He screamed, staring them all down in indignation " It won't happen!" He coughed blood as he forced his voice as loud as he could, but he pushed on, his core blazing.
"You, all of you...! You should be thanking me! Fucking thanking me! I immortalized you! I immortalized all of you! Made you greater than you were! Because of me you will live forever, you are art! You owe me everything! Everything!" His words resounded in the drowning blue hued gales of the storm, carried on the wind as his eyes tried to make out the faces he once so beautifully framed... trying to see their corruption, but they refused him, their visages were too obscured by the night to see. Only their eyes, bright and white and sharp as needles were visible, forever staring, never blinking.
"Let me see you..." he started, bristling as his hands and feet lost feeling "Let me see you!"
Not a soul moved, still as statues... his temper flared violently. How dare they ignore me! ME!?
"Listen to me, you ungratefully little... fuckers...! You owe me this, show me your fucking faces! Please, just...! Just let me see your faces! I need to see, I need to see!" The wind changed, something was coming. Jefferson flinched... suddenly aware of the cruel and ironic fact that he needed to get away, he could feel it in his bones... but he couldn't move a muscle.
They were smiling. Every single of them. The newest strike of lightning illuminated that for the briefest instant. A dark shape was hurtling towards them from the sky, small, but growing larger.
"I made you into art...! I made you into more...! You are muses, all of you! I transcended you... You owe me, you fucking owe me!" Mark fought tears. Was this how Frankenstein felt, when his own progeny, his divine gift to the world turned on him? Drenched to the bone Mark's breaths become staggered, the labor of their effort gradually growing tougher and tougher.
The boy stepped forward then, and Mark shook his head.
"No... no I don't want to see you... I want to see them! I want to see my art! I don't want to see you!" a fresh bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, setting it alight... and illuminating him plainly for Mark to recoil from.
It was Nathan, plain as the day... and in that dull glow of embers Mark could see his crude handy work. He saw the surgical gunshot wound to the boy's face and the snarling teeth it revealed, ruining a once handsome countenance that was now thinned from death... and streaked with dried obsidian blood that had long since lost its warmth. Those cold, glassy eyes were full of pain, betrayal... and hatred.
The two stared at one another, no words exchanged... just letting it sink in, that sometimes we don't always get what we want. It was only when that message was truly understood, that Mark finally saw that he wasn't God here, that Nathan's expression changed- and he smiled in satisfaction.
"Nathan... i..." its all Mark could muster, the words running out in his dried mouth as his throat finally stopped working and his eyes followed Nathan's finger as it pointed skyward as the Revenant's back straightened... unaware of the rising chatter of voices and torches moving towards them from nearby.
He could hear Rachel sigh, contented as she looked up to the darkened clouds, and his eyes joined her skyward- focusing on the huge shape that was careening towards them... no, towards him... like a comet. There was no escape.
This can't be it... I'm not done yet... I have so much to do! So much! I have to finish my masterpieces, I can't be forgotten! Kate, Maxine, they need me, they need me! I.. I need them! This can't be it! I deserve better than this! I DESERVE BETTER!
Mark could scream only for an instant... before the black mass hit him with a force incomparable to anything on earth, and swallowed him whole... plunging him once again into the cold embrace of nothingness. Mark Jefferson was gone... and in the wake of that fact, the wind gradually began to settle as a gentle gust breezed across the scene like a longing sigh of release.
"Over here! Its over here!" David Madsen yelled, following close on the heels of the German Shepard he had by the leash. His posse was not far behind, a small rag tag group of police officers who had bravely ventured out into the storm with him in pursuit.. racing against the clock.
They almost didn't need the dogs, their keen noses weren't required now they could follow the bonfire ahead like a beacon... the one fiery light left, as the light house was now a sundered wreck. The storm was beginning to fail, its winds losing their momentum now, and David felt all the better for it. His thoughts were with Chloe, with his wife... and even to a more begrudging extent, with Max.
It was because of her that he was out here, looking for this... this monster. All this time, this fucking animal had been right under his very nose. No more. The wolf has lain with the sheep for long enough.
"Jesus, David... look at this mess!" The group spilled into the clearing of that dark place bathed in fire-glow... there was nothing left, and the figures they could see at the edge of the forest had seemed to just... disappear. They couldn't have just gone, David knew that... but it was like they had just blown away on the breeze. Damnit!
"Split up, take the dogs... I want whoever was up here found and I want them found yesterday!" the officers fell into step, unwilling to deny the soldier in Madsen as he fell back into his most comfortable mindset. It sat well with him giving orders... especially when he didn't get shit for giving them "And look out for Mark Jefferson, he's the reason we're here! Be careful, he's a real slippy sonuvabitch..."
The group began to peel away, and Madsen was left alone with his canine... basking in the fire of what was left of the bunker. It seemed whatever evidence they could have found went up in smoke... he spat at the earth, but found his gaze on the peculiar site just ahead of him, cratered in the wet and muddy ground like a broken monument. Hesitantly he approached, his dog getting more and more excited as the came upon the lip of the crater... the sight stilled David's thoughts, and broke his heart.
Buried in the sludge of the mud was a goddamn whale.
"Christ..." the Tornado must have picked it up and throw it... mother have mercy...
David was aghast, more so that his dog had suddenly began to bark loudly- drawing in the others quickly. They reported they had found no one, that whoever was here must've ghosted them... but Madsen could not bring himself to say a word when he saw what the dog was hollering at. Quickly the posse encircled the brutalized giant, drawn in by the call of the canine... and they too fell into a hushed silence as the dogs fought to push their nose to a disembodied set of glasses... and the hand not far from them, frozen in a desperate lifeless claw and attached to an arm that disappeared beneath the monolithic beast.
The cops began to peel away, their voices fading into non-distinct noises as they call it in, David merely handed off the leash of his pup to one of his subordinates. He could only stare, his eyes transfixed. The bastard was dead, and his bunker resembled the closest thing he would ever see to the Gates of Abaddon... fuck. After all this... he'd failed Chloe. There was no justice to be recovered in this unholy wreck- just smoke and ash.
He struggled not to become morose, but he had failed... he hadn't made it on time, and fate had decided to drop a whale on the one shot he had at protecting the pupils of Blackwell; but something caught his eye, dragging his gaze to the whale, or rather what had just landed upon it. A Blue Jay, singing almost in joy as it danced across the skin of that sadly passed whale in jubilation... David was mesmerized... and watched as it took off, flying past him so fast and so close it spun his head trying to follow it.
That's how he spotted it, lodged in the dirt... blown clear of the immolated Dark Room- faintly trailing wisps of smoke. A binder, scorched black.
Hope flooded back in a tsunami. Oh my god... oh my god!
David scrambled to his knees, quickly grasping and lifting the torched tome from the dirt. The scarlet skin was a charred mess of melted plastic and goopy mud... it had almost fused together, and like a protective cocoon he had to bust open. I'll be damned... Madsen fell speechless the moment he saw that it had managed to preserve the images within. Their content however, left David sick to his stomach.
He knew the girl in the pictures, her posters were all over Blackwell. He could've cried at the images... a part of him wishing that the miracle of their survival had never come to pass. But here it was... he could see to it that justice would be done, and with this resolute promise, the Blue Jay rose towards the heavens with the smoke... and the Storm's wrath seemed to gradually roll away on calming winds; winds that reminded David of the songs of Whales.
A/N: Thank you for reading this one-shot! It was my first real exploration into horror writing, so i hope you enjoyed! I'm going to try and get a few one-shots done in-between chapters of Children of the Storm.
Thank you for reading!