Chapter 7
Herry groaned when his alarm began blaring in his ear. He reached out blindly to his bed side table and began searching around with uncoordinated fingers, sending papers flying and his PMR clanking to the floor. When he found his alarm he slammed his palm down on snooze and then repeated the process two more times before he finally rolled out of bed. It was unusually dark in his room. He stumbled towards his drawers, kicking a lead weight on his way over. He cursed and lifted his foot up to squeeze his throbbing toes. What a way to start the morning. Grumbling he stomped down the stairs, pulling his shirt over his head. He rounded into the kitchen to find Jay and Archie conversing over a bowl of cereal. He grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and joined them.
"Hey, why the hell is it so dark outside, did I miss daylight saving time or something?" he asked in irritation.
"No," Archie replied.
"Something about this doesn't feel right," Jay said in thought, "There's no clouds in the sky and it's already eight in the morning, but it doesn't even look like the sun is starting to come up."
"Do you think it's Cronus?" Herry asked, drowning his corn pops in milk.
"Isn't it always," Archie smirked.
"Archie," Jay scolded, "this is serious."
"Jay, calm down and wait till lunch, it might lighten up by then," Archie said. Reluctantly Jay agreed and pushed away from the table to toss his bowl in the sink.
Opal's hands were shaking as she struggled with the clips on her bag. Why was it so dark outside? Dark she could deal with when she was sleeping, and that was all. The flashlight in the drawer of her bedside table was always within arm's reach and always had a fresh pair of spare batteries tucked away with it. This was not natural, where was the sun? It should be up by now. The clatter of a lock being scooped into a palm drew a sharp screech from her.
"Sorry," Herry sent her a look that was more concerned for her sanity than apologetic.
She collected her skin from the ceiling and picked her stomach up from the floor before she answered him with a shaky voice, "It's okay. I just don't like the dark."
"Oh yeah," he looked down the hallway to peer out the window, "Odd isn't it."
"You know what's going on don't you?" she said before the rational part of her brain could stop her. There had been a lot of weird things happening in her home town the past few years. In the time she had known Herry she noticed how his eyes shifted and the frown that pulled down on his lips with every single occurrence.
"What?" he shook his head and looked down at her with his brows drawn together.
"That look on your face, you're much calmer than everyone else right now, you know what's going on," she said.
"What?" he shook his head and forced a smile, "Honestly, I don't know what's going on."
"Yes, you do," she repeated again.
"No, I don't," he shook his head, I just have a hunch.
She glared at him for a moment, until the sting of tears pricked at the back of her eyes. She staggered back a step and looked away, turning back to her open locker to continue fiddling with the snaps on her bag.
"Hey, what are you doing with your eyes," Herry quickly stammered, panic tugging at his insides, "Are you crying? No, stop that."
"No, I'm not crying," she sniffled and ran the back of her hand across her face.
"Yes, you are, now stop it," he ordered.
She ignored him and sniffled again.
"Stop it," he repeated with a desperate force, freaking women and their tears. Hers were just as terrifying as Theresa's, whenever he would find her crying over a tub of ice cream at some ungodly time in the morning.
"Then make the sun come back," she told him and slammed her locker shut. Taking off down the hall to the one guaranteed place he couldn't follow her, the girl's bathroom. Herry shook his head and tossed up his hands in complete shock. Maybe it would be best if he watched himself around her from now on, not give her anymore hints about his life that could tip her off.
Jay was jumping when lunch rolled around and the sky was still an inky black. He paced in front of the lunch table as he waited for the others to arrive. The students gathered in the cafeteria all seemed tense and unnerved by the expanse of darkness. The cafeteria was stilled to a haunting quiet as they listened to the news coming over the television that had always only ever been set to satellite radio. Slowly his team assembled and he ushered everyone to the god's domain. He jogged briskly to Hera's office with the others staying on his heal. She was speaking with Hermes when he crashed through the door. She welcomed them in a relived but tense voice.
"Jay," Hermes rushed over to the group, "There's something not right out there."
"Thanks Hermes, we hadn't noticed," Atlanta muttered under his breath as she elbowed Archie in the ribs.
"There's something dark covering the city," Hera expanded, "Hermes thinks he has locked onto the section that had the most negative energy."
"Well where is it?" Jay prompted urgently.
"It's in Point Johnson," she told him.
Jay's pulse dropped, the park was the largest one in the city with its own campground, the place was more like a conservation reserve.
"I'm sorry I couldn't pinpoint it any closer than that," Hermes shrugged, tossing out his hands, palms up.
"Well, it's a lot better than nothing," he turned to his teammates, "Come on guys, let's go." They rushed back out of the school and into the parking lot. The darkness was eerie, naturally pricking at every hair to stand on end. There were ravens sitting all over, on the roof of the school, on the cars, on light posts. All of the birds paused their preening or pecking to shift their eyes towards the heroes. With light treading tiptoes Jay crept down the concrete steps to the sidewalk, leading the way to the truck. On the railing post sat one of the black ravens, it squawked as Neil walked by and the blonde shrieked, jumping behind Archie.
"Come on man, it's just a bird," Archie complained. The raven beat its wings, and the slash of feathers cutting through air resonated as it flew off into the sky. They watched it go, evaporating into the darkness like an ice cube melting in a drink.
"Did I just see that?" Atlanta asked, "Please tell me I'm not crazy."
"Yeah, I saw it too," Odie said.
"Come on guys," Jay prompted, the first to look away from the sky where the raven vanished. They rushed through the flock to Herry's truck and piled in. He flicked the headlights on and backed out of the lot, taking off down the road to the edge of town. As he drove he noticed the lights being cast from his headlights seemed to be absorbed by the unnatural night, more and more as they approached the park. He flicked his high beams on, but they were devoured by the darkness too.
"Damn it, I can't see a thing," he leaned forward to squint out the windshield, slowing significantly.
"Oh, I have some night goggles in my bag," Odie piped fishing them out to hand over.
"Odie, only you would just carry around a pair of night glasses in your pack," Atlanta told him.
"Thanks buddy, much better," Herry said as he set them on his nose and the darkness lit into a crisp green. He slammed his foot down on the gas and tore through the streets. Theresa gasped as Herry turned down the packed gravel of the park's main road. The trees became denser, their branches shifting hauntingly in the shadows. Jay placed a hand on Theresa's knee and waited for her to come out of a vision.
"What did you see?" Jay asked her when she blinked open her eyes.
"Uggh," she rubbed the tips of her fingers into her temples and clenched her eyelids closed, "Just darkness everywhere, coming from all around."
"It's okay," Odie called from the back seat, pulling out his laptop. He switched it on and the fans began whisking. He pulled up an advanced GPS program and started pounding on his keyboard, "Let me just fix on the dark particles…"
"Whatever you say Odie," Archie said, leaning over his shoulder to look at the computer screen. The radar fixed in on a concentration of dark matter. He plugged his PMR into the computer and downloaded the coordinates.
"Here Herry, follow this," he unplugged his phone and leaned forward to place it in Herry's palm. He clipped it into a stand on the dash and adjusted it to view while he drove. Slowly he maneuvered down rows of campsites, the gravel crunching and popping under the heavy treaded tires of his truck. He crept past a campsite watching the GPS closely and then tossed his truck in reverse to back into it.
The team hopped out into the cool air of the extended night. It was deathly quiet, no birds sang or crickets, no leaves rustled in the still air. They expanded a parameter around the packed ground of the campsite. Odie jumped up to sit on the top of a picnic table located centrally, right beside a fire pit. Setting his computer on his lap he quickly set up an analysis of the atmosphere. As the program ran the study a warning to plug the computer came up on his screen.
"No, I just had it plugged in," he pulled up the battery status and watched the bar of its energy drain like a sieve and the screen snapped black, the cooling fan swirled to a stop. With that small white noise gone the silence hit him like a train, his eyes use to the blue electronic glow were useless in the pitch. His breathing hitched as his senses abandoned him.
A gust whipped like a gunshot, the blast rushing inward from all around to the campsite. Pulses of all seven teens raced, stomachs jumping into throats as they broadened their stance to ready for a confrontation. Trees groaned in the wind, branches and leaves sending up a commotion of moans. Cracks and bangs resonated through the forest as branches and trunks snapped to come crashing to the ground. The shock wave constricted in on its center as belts constricted around lungs and came to a sudden, ground rattling halt. The complete silence was restored.
"What was that?" Archie asked rigidly, standing ready with his whip.
"I don't know," Jay said, fingers brushing his chest over his heart, "Herry can I see those glasses for a second."
"Sure," he took them off and his heart began pounding in his ears with his vision back to human.
"Oh my gods," Jay breathed as he watched raven after raven materialize from nothing but blackness and drop on the tree branches like rain. In seconds the campsite was surrounded with rasping and squawking black birds. They watched the ravens with hearts hammering, keeping completely still. One bird let out a blood curdling screech and a swarm of black rose from the trees, their wings churning the air like a jet. Hundreds of birds dove for the group of heroes. It was useless to lash out, but Jay did with his sword, Archie with his whip, Atlanta with her mounted cross bow and Herry with his fists. More and more birds just swooped in to replace their fallen comrades as they exploded into puffs of black smoke. Odie took Neil's lead and fell to the ground in a ball, covering his head the best he could with his arms as the birds bombarded them with ripping talons and probing scalpels for beaks.
