***AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to the Travel Channel or to Ghost Adventures. Zak, Nick, and Aaron, or any other real-life characters, are NOT owned by me, however the interactions with these characters in this chapter ARE mine. All other characters in this chapter are owned by me. Real life references to locations, brands, and musicians/artists are not owned by me, and the characters' interactions with them are purely fictional.***
NOTE: I need some help with some bits and pieces in the next 10+ chapters of Darkness Within Light, and I would LOVE for you to brainstorm with me! PM me for details! (And as always, PLEASE REVIEW, I crave your input/feedback!) ^_^
Chapter XXVIII – Faulty Vision and High-Speed Decompression
I heard a faint voice plead with me. "Desiree! What is it?"
I mustered up enough strength to move, looked up, and gasped in horror. Zak followed my gaze. A Shadow – the Shadow – was standing twenty feet from us. What are YOU doing here? I thought, terrified.
Its presence felt like I was caught in a cage with an angry wolf, teeth bared, ready to attack. I heard Zak yell for Nick to train his camera in front of us, but it was like I was underwater. The sound was muffled and felt far away.
"What's your name?" Zak called, turning on his digital recorder. What was weird was he didn't sound threatening at all. What is wrong with you, dude? I blinked and looked up again, but the Shadow was gone… along with the weight that I was feeling. I sucked in air and slowly stood up.
Jerry was on me instantly. "Are you okay?" He pulled a handkerchief from his chest pocket and handed it to me to mop up the blood running down my face and dripping on the floor.
"Did you just use Desiree's energy to appear for me?" Zak called, like he was talking to a child.
Wait a minute…
"I'm fine, Jerry," I mumbled, turning to head back to the elevator. "And I'm so fucking done up here," I said to Zak. I still felt disconnected and unstable.
The color in Zak's cheeks drained when he saw the terror in my eyes and the blood dripping off my chin. I tried on my tough-girl stance, rolled my eyes and put the handkerchief to my face.
"Nick, we'll come back up here later and finish this up. Let's head back down." Zak walked over to me and waved his hand downward at Nick. "Shut that camera off, bro." He caressed my cheek with his knuckles and lifted my chin to inspect my nose with his right hand, cupping my cheek with the other.
"We need to get some ice on that." He wiped my upper lip with his thumb and pulled back to turn back towards Nick, looking unsure as to what their next move should be.
I winced as I saw my own blood on his fingers.
Jerry narrowed his eyes at Zak touching me, but he seemed to accept that Zak was being attentive to me because he began to walk back towards the elevator. I waited until my great-uncle was out of earshot before I opened my mouth again.
"Zak… I didn't actually trip and fall."
Zak said nothing. He just pointed to Nick, who lifted his camera back up and turned it towards me.
"You didn't fall?"
I frowned. I don't want this on camera… "No. I felt two hands on my back push me."
Zak arched an eyebrow at me. "You're serious?"
"I'm not a damned fool, Zak."
He turned his back to me. "Show me how hard you were pushed."
I put both hands flat against his shoulder blades and shoved as hard as I could, causing Zak to pitch forward a couple of steps. He took a deep breath and turned back around slowly, his face beet red. Without saying a word, Zak strode to the corner where we had seen the Shadow and began to shout, "Who hurt Desiree? Who pushed her? Who drained her? Why you fuckin' with my girl?!"
My girl?
Jerry turned around at Zak's voice and stood, hands on his hips, waiting for us to catch up with him. Zak puffed up as he raged against the air. He resembled a pissed off lion, pacing back and forth, sizing up an opponent. "So you'll attack a woman, no problem; but you won't attack me? You're a coward!"
I decided now was the time to leave. I turned and began to walk towards Jerry, while Zak continued to rant.
"Come ON! You've got nothin'!"
"Zak… dude," Nick said to him quietly, noticing that I was retreating. They both ran to catch up with me.
"Desiree, I'm sorry," said Zak, putting a hand at the small of my back as we walked.
"It's whatever. If you were looking for a fight, I didn't wanna be caught in the crossfire," I grumbled. You fucking idiot.
We walked down the stairs silently and joined Barbara and Aaron in the loft.
Jim put a smile on his face and in his voice as he turned to Barbara, offering her his hand. "My beautiful bride, would you mind coming with me downstairs? These guys need a moment to regroup." She giggled like a teenage girl and obliged, but froze when she saw my face.
"Desiree, what happened to your face?"
"I just tripped in the dark, Barbie. No big deal." I went to the fridge and piled ice cubes into the bloody handkerchief. I collapsed on the couch next to Aaron, pressing a clean section of the cloth to my nose. "I'll be down in a minute."
Barbara shrugged. "Okay." She and Jerry disappeared down the staircase.
I glared up at Zak. "Why the hell were you baby-talking up there?"
He gave me a puzzled look. "What do you mean? You saw her too, didn't you?"
"Her?"
"It was a little girl, clear as day. She was waving at me." He began to walk around the room, looking at the various awards, newspaper clippings, and family photos posted on the wall.
He's not taking me seriously! I contemplated throwing a piece of ice at him, but just couldn't cultivate enough interest to follow through.
Instead I just seared the back of his head with a laser-beam glare. "It was not a little girl, Zak!"
He turned to look at me. "What do you mean?"
I opened my mouth to deliver a scathing response, but Nick interrupted me defensively. "No, it was a little girl, I saw it too." He began to rewind his film to see if his camera had caught anything to help validate what he and Zak saw. "I'll show you."
I let out a very bitter laugh. "You need your eyes checked."
Aaron nudged me. "What did you see?"
"A black shadow." I said. Aaron's eyes went wide.
"What do you—"
"FUCK me!" Zak shouted, jumping back from the wall. "Aaron, give me your camera. Now, now, now!" He grabbed it off of Aaron's shoulder and pointed it at the wall.
"Nick, come look at this photograph." He zoomed in on a picture frame. "That's her, bro. That's the little girl! Same dress and everything."
"Yeah man. Creepy. Hey Desiree, who is this?"
I heaved myself off the couch and joined them. I felt my blood freeze. It was a photograph of a little olive-skinned girl – about four years old – with brown hair and bright blue eyes, wearing a very ruffled baby-blue dress, shiny white shoes and lacy white socks. She was beaming at the camera and clutching a rainbow-colored book, a gaudy ribbon tied slightly off-center on her head and her skinned knees just visible under the ruffles of her dress. "Oh, my God…"
Zak turned to look at me and his eyes went wide, recognizing the connection.
"What?" asked Nick.
I ripped the framed picture off of the wall and gripped at it frantically. My head was reeling. I gawked at the picture, the piece of time captured on film. The memory of that day floated into my consciousness in an overpowering fashion.
- flashback: April, 1985 -
"Vamos, princesita," A beautiful woman with olive skin and long dark hair beckoned to me from the front door of a run-down duplex. A child, looking like the woman's curly-haired miniature, giggled and ran behind an old blue recliner. Joyful golden rays of morning sunlight danced in from the windows and across her hair.
"You have to find me, Momma!" The child crouched down and leaned forward, peeking over the arm of the recliner and gripping the straps of her brand-new white shoes for balance.
Suddenly a pair of gigantic, strong hand wrapped themselves around her sides and lifted her high into the air. She shrieked as a deep voice boomed, "Gotcha!"
A man with a wide smile and a full beard lifted the child over his head and spun around in three circles before setting her on his broad shoulders, placing a firm but gentle grip on her ankles to keep her from falling backwards.
"We are going to be late for church, Joe."
"But it's Easter, Daddy! We have to go egg-hunting!"
The man picked up his giant brown leather Bible and a pastel-colored gift bag and walked the two of them out the front door to join the beautiful woman on the front sidewalk. He lifted the little girl back over his head and set her on the ground, holding out the bag in front of her face. "The Easter Bunny told us to wait until after we celebrate Jesus to hunt for eggs, Baby… But he asked us to go ahead and give you our present before church."
The woman wrapped an arm around his waist, and they both smiled down at the girl as she tore into the bag. She lifted out a small, hardback Bible that was colored like a pastel rainbow. The pages were gold-lined, and her name was inscribed in gold cursive on the bottom right corner of the cover.
The little girl began to jump up and down. "Thank you, Daddy!" She ran forward and hugged the man's legs. "I love you!"
"We love you too, Mijita." Her father produced a camera and pointed to a modest flowerbed lining the sidewalk. "Stand over there so we can take a picture of you in your new clothes."
"And with my new Bible?"
"Of course," he laughed.
The child grinned as wide as she could and held still long enough for him to snap a photo, then skipped towards the car. "Let's go learn about how much Jesus loves us!"
Her parents gave each other a smile and shook their heads, sharing the same thought: Our daughter has such a big, weird heart.
- end flashback -
I was snapped back to reality by Nick landing a heavy hand urgently on my shoulder. "What, Des? What's wrong?"
My hands had begun to tremble uncontrollably.
"Nick… I, um… that's me."
For a moment, no one said a word. It felt like the floor had dropped out from under us.
Aaron stood up. "So, hold it. Let me make sure I get this right. Something sucked all of the Desiree's energy out of her and manifested visually. All three of you saw it, but you and Zak saw a little girl that looks just like Desiree when she was little, and Desiree saw a demon?"
"It wasn't just any demon, Aaron. It was that damn Shadow."
I saw rage fill Zak's eyes. "You have got to be kidding me."
"How do you know?" asked Aaron.
I chewed on his question, trying to come up with the words to describe it. I studied the photograph, hoping it would provide an answer. "I don't know how I know, Aaron. It was like the thing just revealed itself to me in my head. I can't describe it."
"I understand that," said Zak. "Demons can screw with your head hardcore, though. Are you sure this wasn't just another demon playing on your own fears?"
I slowly set the picture frame back on it's hook in the wall, still in shock. "I guess technically no, I can't discern something like that. I just know what I felt and what I saw."
"Here it is, guys," Nick said, turning the camera's LCD display towards us.
We saw me go down on my knees, then something like a thin black wisp of smoke seemed to appear and vaporize at the same time in front of me and Zak… and at that moment there was a clear laugh of a child that was on this video that we did not hear at the time. Zak picked up his digital recorder and dialed it to that moment. "Moment of truth," he mumbled under his breath, hitting the "Play" button.
Again, the indisputable sound of a little girl giggling. I felt a knot begin to rise in my throat.
"What's your name?"
"…She's mine…"
"What the fuck does that mean?" Zak was trembling, he was so mad. He wound his arm back to throw the digital recorder, but slowly talked himself out of it.
"…Come play with me, Zak…" said the same female child's voice clearly, followed by a horrific demonic snarl.
Zak looked up at me with apologetic eyes.
"…Run! Run now!..." it sounded like a woman screaming. I felt goosebumps run down my spine.
Fuck this.
I turned and walked down the stairs without saying another word.
"Whoa, whoa, wait, where's she going?"
"Des!" Zak caught my arm half way down the stairs.
"Let go of me!"
"Desiree, what's wrong?"
I blinked back tears. "I'm screwing up your investigation by being here. I need to leave."
He took two steps past me and turned to me, face to face. "What do you mean?"
"We haven't seen any evidence of what Barbara and Jerry are reporting, just my Shadow fucking with us."
He put his hands on my shoulders and studied my watery eyes. "Go on downstairs, I'll be there in a minute."
"Zak, I—"
He cut me off by pushing his lips up against mine, cupping my face in his hands. He wiped a tear away with his thumb. "Don't you dare apologize, sweetie."
His gaze shifted past me and I whirled around to see what had caught his attention. Aaron was standing at the top of the stairs, camera pointed at us, a sheepish look on his face. "Sorry guys, I didn't know…"
"Aaron, dude?" Zak sighed and moved over to let me pass him on the cramped staircase. "Not cool."
I continued numbly down the stairs and returned to the bar. I collapsed on a barstool next to Jerry and buried my face in my hands. Jerry put a protective hand on my back. "What's wrong, Sister?"
I just shook my head. I can't believe this.
Barbara joined us. "No one's ever been attacked like that here before, is this what happens when these guys show up?"
"No… the thing that attacked me isn't normally here."
"What in the hell do you mean by that, Desiree? Did they bring it here?"
I sighed. I've kept my family, outside of my parents, completely in the dark about what is attached to me, mostly so they won't think I'm a two-bit whack-job. "No. I did."
Jerry turned my face towards him. "You need to spill it. Right now."
I felt the tears begin to leak from my eyes. "There's a demonic force that has been attached to me for years now… ever since I was living in west Texas." I stood up and beckoned him and Barbara to the stock room and turned my back to them, lifting up my shirt.
Jerry went white. Barbara put a hand to her chest. "Lord, have mercy…"
I pulled my shirt back down and turned back around. "I'm used to it by now, but it's screwing up their investigation."
"Actually, it isn't. It's forcing the other entities here to interact, which rules them out as residual," said Nick, standing in the doorway.
Aaron poked his head in. "I'm sending the recordings and videos to Billy, now. He should have results in an hour or so."
I looked at Nick. "Is he in Vegas?"
"No. He came with us, but he's still at the hotel."
Barbara put a hand on her hip. "Okay. I think we're done here for today." She went to the office to grab her purse.
Jerry pointed at Zak. "You and your team are coming to the house." He waved goodbye to the afternoon shift employees and ushered me out the door.
He walked me to my car and leaned on the door. "Sister, I'm sorry about what you're going through. If you want us to we can kick the guys off this investigation. Just say the word."
I shook my head. "Don't worry about me. I'll keep my distance and it should be alright. I'll see you guys back at the house, I need to go for a drive and clear my head."
"Be careful."
I unlocked my door and turned over the engine. As it warmed up I stared straight ahead, blankly. I felt numb.
BANG!
I was startled by a hand knocking on the passenger-side window. Zak was bent over, giving me a wave.
I smiled and unlocked the door. He climbed in awkwardly. "You were right about me being a tight fit," he grunted, pulling the seatbelt over his shoulder.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Cashing in my rain check for a ride." He smiled mischievously at me.
Good grief.
I looked past him at the front of the building. Barbara was talking with Nick and Aaron, no doubt giving them directions to her and Jerry's house. "Shouldn't you be with your boys?"
"They're going to the hotel to work through stuff with Billy, and then all three will head to your aunt and uncle's place. I want to be with you right now, is that okay?"
I frowned. "I'm not exactly pleasant company right now. What did you have in mind?"
He patted the shift knob and winked. "Blow my hair back, baby-girl."
Okay, I can do that.
"Aye, aye, captain." I fingered through the CD collection in the back storage cubby behind my seat and pulled out a Glitch Mob album. I popped it in the CD player and adjusted the sound levels. I waved at my aunt and the guys, put the car in gear and peeled out onto the street.
As soon as we hit the highway, I dropped the gear and slammed on the gas. The turbo-charger let out ear-piercing cries and the four hundred horses surged us forward as the bass for Fistful of Silence appropriately dropped, vibrating my chest and drowning out my fearful thoughts. Zak gripped at his seat and the dashboard as my RX7 easily passed 140 mph, and the speedometer needle continued to climb.
We passed a hundred and seventy miles per hour, and I felt tunnel-vision set in. It's dangerous, but at that moment, I didn't care. I needed to go and go and go until I felt like I had outrun the terror that we had just faced.
Fuck it.
