Chapter 9

Jack woke suddenly. The Dark was stifling. He looked around. He'd fallen asleep in his hiding spot. He saw the nice man and confusing woman sleeping on opposite ends of the bed in the same room. Dark was coming from them, too. Dark was coming from everywhere. He wanted to get out but there was no way. All of the windows and doors were blocked. He crept to the blood room, closed the door as quietly as he could, and rubbed his hands against the walls until a light came on.

He felt like the nice part of him that he'd discovered earlier that day had gone away and left nothing behind. The Dark was angry and strong. It wanted Jack to leave. It wanted him to leave forever and let it take over. He plucked at one of his sleeves with his claws, unsure of what to do next. He looked around the room aimlessly.

There was a big square of something on the wall. A Hunter looked back at Jack from inside of it. He didn't look dangerous, just sad. Sad and Dark. Jack felt bad for the Hunter. He reached out a hand, just to let him know that things would be okay. The Hunter reached out a hand, too. He understood Jack. Jack felt a new warmth spread on his face and a little spark of nice heat his insides. The other Hunter showed his bloody teeth in a smile. Their hands were almost touching. Excitement filled Jack. He shuffled forward.

His hand met something solid and cold. The other Hunter's smile went away. What was happening? He pushed against the cold hard thing, but he couldn't get through it. The other Hunter tried to help, but he couldn't get out. Jack took a few steps back and the other Hunter followed his lead. They had the same idea. Jack would break him out of his prison. He smiled a little. This new friend understood completely. Finally, someone understood!

He backed up to the wall and charged at the cold hard thing that kept him from his friend. He hit it hard with his good shoulder. It broke loudly. Jack leapt back to let his friend through. When he looked up, his friend was gone. The prison was gone. It was in little broken pieces on the floor. He looked down at the pieces. His friend frowned up at him, broken like the prison.

No. His breath shuddered. No, please. He felt warm sadness come from his eyes. I hurt him, too. He's gone, too. Just like everything else! Jack pounded a fist against the floor until it bled. The Dark stabbed at his insides. Maybe the Dark would go away if he could feel another pain.


Dee woke up to a loud thumping noise punctuated by muffled screeches. Her arm throbbed angrily when she rolled onto it. She looked around in the dark, and saw that Jack was gone from the corner he had been sleeping in. Todd was still curled up in his typical cocoon. She slipped out from under the covers. The bathroom door was closed and light peeked through the space between the door and the floor. Something warm and wet met her foot when she went to open the door.

She yanked the door open. Inside was Jack, curled into a pitiful bleeding ball and sobbing. Broken glass was scattered all over the tile.

"Jack, what happened?"

Her voice was sharper than perhaps it should have been. Jack didn't move, but whimpered softly and curled deeper into a ball. His blood soaked hoodie smeared crimson on the tan tile. She tried to roll him over so she could see where the blood was coming from, but he refused to budge.

Jack had found new pain, and the Dark liked it very much. He couldn't escape. There was nowhere to run. The Dark was everywhere. There was a familiar voice and a gentle hand pushing on him. The confusing woman was there; that was the last thing he wanted. She'd found him. She'd know what he did. He scooted away from her awkwardly, sitting up and doing his best to keep his back to her. Blood poured down his face. The Dark wanted him to taste it. He didn't.

"Jack, please. I want to help you. Let me see what's wrong."

Dee watched his hunched form shudder. One clawed hand went up to his face and came away soaked in blood. A small keening sound came from her Hunter friend. She touched his arm. To her surprise, he leaned into her hand and slowly turned. Before he showed her his face, he put a hand on her wrist and squeezed gently.

Dee stifled a scream when Jack finally turned around. One of his eyes was completely missing and blood flowed heavily from its socket. The other eye, which was still intact, refused to look at her. She shot to her feet.

"Stay here. I'll get a medical kit and be right back."

She dashed to the living room and snatched up the first medical kit she saw. On the way back to the bathroom, she jerked the covers off of Todd. He swore groggily and bolted upright.

"Come on."


Todd was not at all prepared for what he saw when he stepped into the bathroom. Shattered glass, a partially blinded Jack, blood all over the floor… He surreptitiously bit the inside of his cheek to be sure he hadn't fazed into a nightmare. Nope. He was awake. He really wished he wasn't.

"What did this?" he asked Jack as Dee attempted to wind bandages around the Hunter's head.

Jack looked away and slowly put a hand on his own chest. Todd grimaced.

"You did it to yourself. Why?"

Jack sighed. How to explain all of this? He held his head with one hand for a moment. Everything hurt. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and took out his picture. It felt like something inside of him finally broke. He leaned forward and let all of the sadness and Dark out.

Dee's heart broke at the sound of Jack's scream. It was so full of agony at first, and as it tapered off, the agony became sobs of hopelessness. What had broken him? She put a hand on his quaking shoulder. He cried harder.

Todd knelt in front of Jack.

"Your picture?"

Jack slowly and shakily lifted his head to look at Todd. He dipped his fingers in the blood on the floor. He hated to do it. He really, really hated to do it… but they wouldn't understand otherwise. He smeared blood on his son's smiling face. That hurt the worst. Why did he have to remember?

Todd's blood ran cold.

"Your son… he's dead?

Jack shrieked at the words and Todd had to restrain him when he attempted to pick up a piece of glass.

"Wait, wait. Stop. We need to know what happened so we can help. How do you know that he… passed?"

Jack snarled through his tears and ripped down one of his sleeves. He held out the underside of his arm, revealing a puckered scar that stretched from wrist to elbow.

Todd swallowed the bile that rose in his throat at the thought of the old man from earlier, "You saw him and it reminded you."

Dee looked at Todd.

"Saw what?"

Todd rubbed his eyes and pushed his hair back with a shaking hand.

"The old man that I had Jack get rid of wasn't dead when I got here, but he almost was. He'd cut his arms so he could bleed to death."

It all started to make sense. No wonder Todd had been so shaken up. He looked pale just remembering it.

Jack wiped his fingers on his pants as he sobbed through gritted teeth, and attempted to get the blood off of his son's face. Small… no, Wesley. Wesley was his name, he remembered now. Wesley's face. He didn't want to think about how that face looked when all of it had ended.

Dee put a hand on Jack's knee.

"I'm sorry, Jack."

Jack lightly touched her hand before putting the photo back in his wallet.


Jack eventually fell asleep just before the sun began to rise. Todd and Dee tried to sleep, but failed. Finally, Dee got up and went to the kitchen for a soda. The caffeine soothed her nerves a little and eased her exhaustion, but she really only drank the soda to give her something to do. The tension was still thick in the air between her and Todd and she didn't quite understand why.

It wasn't like Todd to hide something so traumatic from her. She hated to admit it, but it seemed like everything shifted when he asked her to be his girlfriend. Maybe they were better off just being friends. At least he had talked to her then. She wasn't sure she was ready to face that idea. She finally had what she had been aching for since middle school, and now it was stealing away the parts of Todd that she used to know so well.

Her stomach soured. She poured the rest of her soda into the sink and put the can on the counter. She fiddled with the knobs on the kitchen faucet absentmindedly. She was surprised by a strong stream of water. It was cold, but it was running. She splashed some of it on her tired face.

Todd watched Dee from the doorway. He didn't know why he wouldn't just talk to her about the old man. Maybe it would help. Originally, his plan was to protect her from what he had seen, but that wasn't really working, was it? All he had seemed to do was cause a rift between them and stress Dee out even more than she already had been.

Things were so easy when they weren't romantically involved. He felt so comfortable around her, like he could tell her anything… well, almost anything. Now he was treating her like a stranger all for the sake of keeping her "safe". That would have to stop. If he wanted their relationship to work, he'd have to try a different way of responding to her. He loved her. He didn't want to lose what they'd finally found together.

He took a breath, chewed on his tongue a little, and made himself go to the kitchen despite the pounding of his heart. Dee didn't seem to hear him over the running faucet as she scrubbed away at whatever skin wasn't covered with clothes. He came up behind her and began rinsing her arms with handfuls of water. She looked back at him in surprise.

"Can we start over?" he asked.

Dee was quiet for a gut-tightening minute. Her expression worried him. Finally, she spoke.

"I was really thinking hard about this, Todd," she said quietly, "and I didn't want to admit it, but maybe we were better off just being friends. I don't think this is working out. Maybe it isn't the right time…"

Todd rested his hands on Dee's. He didn't want to let her go. If anyone could make a life together work, it would be Dee and him. They just needed to give it a chance. He pulled her close to him and her back stiffened uncomfortably against him. He ignored it and rested his head on her shoulder.

"Can't we be friends and lovers?" he asked, "We've been able to survive more than most married couples do, just as friends. That's something. We make a good team, Dee. I'm sorry about before. I just… I guess I wanted to protect you from what I saw."

She pulled out of his embrace and twisted to face him.

"I'd rather you talk to me, like we used to. If we're going to make this work we're going to have to stop treating each other like strangers."

"I know," he reached out and turned off the faucet, "I'm going to try."

Dee watched his face for a moment. There was no way she could say no to the earnest plea in his grey eyes.

"Then I'll try, too."

They held each other for a long time, and for a while, nothing existed but them. Eventually, they both went back to bed. Todd slowly inched his way closer to Dee while they tried to get to sleep, but was only brave enough to rest one hand on her waist. She firmly placed one hand on top of his and they both slipped slowly into slumber.


Wesley was crying again. It had been a rough few days since the boy had caught the flu. Jack rolled over and clamped a pillow over his ears. Sheryl's side of the bed was cold. He guessed that she'd been up for a while with Wesley. She was such a saint, being willing to care for their son even though she was sick, too.

He needed to sleep before he went out to train the next day. There was a competition in Aspen that he couldn't afford to miss. His sponsors were counting on him. He only had a week to be in top condition. Being a professional snowboarder wasn't easy, especially when Jack should have been retired five years ago. He was ancient compared to most of the new competition. His sponsors loved him, though; he was the best out there. He reached for the bedside table and tried to plug his ears with tissues.

They worked for a while, but then Wesley's crying changed. It was panicked, now. Jack could faintly hear his son screaming, "Mommy! Stop! Mommy, you're hurting me!"

Jack struggled to free himself from the covers. Within fractions of a second, there were no more words, only screaming. And then silence. He jumped out of bed and ran as fast as he could down the hall to his son's room. Sheryl stood over their son's bed, her head cocked strangely. Jack could see blood splattered up the walls and Wesley… oh, dear God.

Sheryl slowly turned to face her husband. She was deathly pale, even in the shadows of Wesley's nightlight. Blood was smeared across her face and up her arms. Wesley's blood. Her own son's blood. She stared hungrily at Jack and a low growl rose in her throat. Those eyes… they weren't hers. He backed away quickly, his mind racing. That wasn't his wife. This couldn't be real.

She lunged at him with bared teeth. He dodged and sprinted for their bedroom. He kept a pistol in the drawer of his nightstand. He had barely cocked it when Sheryl barreled through the door. She snarled at him.

"What have you done?" he screamed at her, "You killed Wesley! Sheryl, you killed our son!"

She roared and threw herself at him, clawing the air in a frenzy. She bit deeply into his arm. He cried out and squeezed the trigger before he had time to think. The shot sent Sheryl flying backward and she collapsed in a motionless heap. Jack let the gun fall to the floor. He stumbled backward against the bed. Dark blood pooled under the corpse of his wife.

The next several hours were a muddled mess of mourning, disbelief, and horror. What he remembered clearly was avoiding Wesley's room completely and putting the barrel of the pistol in his mouth. He couldn't pull the trigger. He went to the kitchen and got a knife, instead. The plan was that he would go to the bathroom, sit in the tub, slit his wrist, and drift to sleep as he bled out.

He did just that. And as the world around him faded away to black, he thought he heard his son calling to him.