It Starts

 

~I have had dreams, and I have had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.~

 

                Where am I? This place… this place looks so familiar, but I just can’t place it. I see high walls to either of my sides. They belong to buildings that are topped with the owner’s apartments. I should know this place. I know my town top to bottom, side to side. It’s at the back of my mind. No, I still don’t remember! But I guess I can’t fight it, it will come to me when it wants to.

                The alley is dark, dreadful. There are eyes, staring out from the darkness. They are bright specks in deep pools of shadows, and they seem violent, bloodthirsty. And they are staring at me. They look at me with a deep hatred, as if I have caused them great harm in a previous life. No single one are exactly the same. Each eye is a different color, different shades. Only one pair is red, but the shade of red is what caught my attention. I see this color every time I cut myself. Accidentally, of course. The eyes that were staring at me with the most intent were the color of blood.

                Unlike the others, these red, evil eyes didn’t stay still. The red eyes looked directly at me and followed with malicious intent when I moved. It gave the illusion that all the others were just lights, and the red eyes were the only true pair. But I know better.

                I know that the red eyes are the supreme. They belong to a creature unlike any other in this alley, or world for that matter, and the others are afraid of it. They will back down when it is angry, but proudly help it when it needs assistance. I have no idea why I know this; it just feels right.

                The eyes moved again, this time of their own accord, and not just to follow me. I watched them as they looked me over, once, twice, and finally a third time. This creature that the eyes belonged to, were sizing me up. I wish I could see enough of the creature to size it up. I wanted to know what I might be up against, and I still have no idea if this thing was a threat as it hid in the darkness. But all signs are leaning to yes.

                Especially as it lunges at me.

                The red eyes came at me. They belonged to a creature made entirely of shadow. It stood like a man, looked like a man, but when it moved, it crawled on all four of its limbs. I guess it was for speed. I was right. I had no chance to dodge the attack, and I was down for the count. The creature knocked me to the ground, and I almost lost consciousness as my head slammed against the concrete. But I stayed awake long enough to see something I didn’t want to.

                The shadow creature stood on its hind legs, staring down at me. It motioned for me to look behind it. I did. What I saw then made me lose my sanity for a moment; all the smaller shadow creatures had emerged from the darkness, and were crawling to me.

                I heard Red Eyes say something like “Feast, my children. Enjoy your supper, for tonight is a new beginning, and a new end!”

                The smaller creatures writhed around their leader. Then all the shadows became one, and the leader grew. It was around seven feet tall now. Its eyes flashed all the colors of the rainbow, then the eyes disappeared, as if the giant shadow had blinked. When they came back they were just as blood red as before.

                The creature laughed, and picked me up. It threw me into the wall, headfirst. I slammed into it full on, and then… Nothing.

 

 

 

Chapter one.

 

                Darkness filled each corner of my mind, as if I was trapped in an underground cave, all the light banished from my personal world. My identity was lost to me, the same with my location. All that was real to me was the darkness around me. I had not heard a single sound for what seemed like weeks, months, or maybe even years, but now I could hear a faint, yet insistent beeping noise. This noise grew louder and louder, until it filled my head and I couldn’t relieve myself of the annoyance.

                But then I could feel my hand reach for the snooze button, and press it. My mind did not want me to fall asleep again, did not want me to return to the torturous darkness that I had so mercifully escaped from, but my body screamed at me to not get up. A brief fight between my mental and physical traits ensued, but my mind ultimately controlled my body. My physical self had no choice in the matter. I slowly sat up in my bed, and immediately regretted it.

                Long story short, I hurt. I had no idea why, but I did. I had done nothing too physically straining the previous day. Or the previous week, for that matter. Even so, every morning was the same thing over and over again. I’d wake up to the alarm, and regret ever setting the dang thing.

                I rubbed the back of my neck, and shoulders. Those areas always hurt the most for me. It was as if I earned a living by lifting heavy things for the older people who couldn’t. In my sleep. I knew it sounded weird, but it was the only thing I could think of. I was, in fact, not in the least bit true.

                I even went to see a doctor. He told me that I had to stop working in construction, and move on to something else. I told him that I didn’t work in construction. I told him that I was a security guard at the mall. He didn’t believe me, so I showed him my check stub. He was astounded.

                “I’ve never heard of a man with so much back pains who worked as a security guard!” he had said.

                 The doctor’s medicines didn’t help, either. I’d take the pill, and the pain would go away for a while, allowing me to sleep, but then it would be right back with me in the morning, and I wasn’t suppose to take any of the pills during the day or they’d put me to sleep standing up.

                Aspirin work just fine during the day, but they still don’t take all the pain away. Everyday I trudge along to work, dragging my feet, and my pains along with me. I know that I don’t have to work, for my parents left me a large sum of money when they died. But, I still go to work, not because I need the money, but because without a job, I would be totally ripped away from the world.

                I don’t have very many friends, as I grew up with my parents, who made me move every month despite my pleading to stay in one spot. My father was a traveling salesman. A very good one. And I don’t mean good in the fact that he was a hero. Absolutely the opposite. He would lie about the things he sold, and if people still weren’t interested, he’d find something about them and blackmail them into buying even more of his products. He wanted to bring his family with him while he traveled.

                My mother on the other hand put up with the moving around for a year or two. I don’t remember exactly how long it was until she snapped. But I knew back then. I knew because I started to get bruises. My mother was fed up with the moving, and in the various towns we went to, she began smoking and drinking heavily. She even had the audacity to snort cocaine right in front of me. I hated my mother for beating me.

                I hated my father for putting this upon my mother and me. But he was so successful at what he did, when he died he left me a total of around four and a half million dollars. Enough to get me through life without having to work. But I felt bored, like I was missing something. I didn’t know what it was at first, so I started to work. The money I get from that goes to charity. I felt happy that I was giving money to needy children. For a while. Then I felt the hole in my stomach. I was still missing something.

                It was about another two months before I figured out what that something was. I am a twenty-nine-year-old man. And I have no friends. I have never had a best friend, never experienced the things a child needed to grow up and become the man I wanted to be. I haven’t even had a first kiss. Never walked hand-in-hand with the crush of my life in the sunset. I never even had a crush. Except for the beautiful women on billboards. But I don’t think those count.

                Anyways, back to the here-and-now. Something was missing, and the pain wasn’t filling the void. I was lonely, and I had blown my one chance at changing that. But, I guess I’m rambling, for that is neither here, or now in this story. I just wish I could have done something different.

                I am getting ahead of myself. If I reveal what happened now, I may damage the integrity of my story, and you may lose interest. So I’ll try to stay off that path until I need to get back on it.

                I had finally made it out of bed, and popped three aspirin at once, then took a swig of the warm water on my dresser. The entire process of waking up and battling unconsciousness took around ten or fifteen minutes. Add another five minutes if you count the argument that I had with myself about whether or not I should give up and crawl back into bed.

                Obviously, I won the argument. But the loser was not very happy with the turnout either. Both of me were going to work, whether I liked it or not.

***

                A squeak from the non-oiled door filled the long hallway and buzzed around my head, bringing the pain I had managed to avoid on my way here. I felt like I was on a roller coaster and my head was full of nails. The nails were rocking around in my skull and made me want to crawl into a corner and hide.

                I managed to push the door all the way open without anymore noise, saving me from the pain. Unfortunately, the man inside turned in his chair and looked at me.

                “Yo, Jimmy! How are you doing?”

                The pain I felt must have shone strongly on my face as my stomach did back-flips and the nails followed suit because the man jumped from his chair and caught me, slowly leading me to the chair. Letting me sit down on it.

                “I see you’re not doing very good. Why’d you come in today?”

                “I’ve been skipping too much lately. And you need the help, Shane.”

                Shane looked at me with his one good eye. “I can still see the security screens, Jim. I’m fine alone.”

                Somehow, for a single second I forgot my pain. Then I said, “I’m not,” and faded into the darkness of unconsciousness.

 

                Someone stood in the darkness. I have never seen him before. He looks at me from behind a veil of darkness. I can feel his stare, along with something else. The warmth rushing around me almost concealed it, but I knew something was there. It felt as if someone was standing behind me and was breathing down my neck. I turned, but saw nothing there.

                He wore a white suit that seamed to swirl around him like a cloud of mist. His black shoes were simply shadows.

                “Jim…” I turn back to the man to see he has moved from the shadows. His face is still concealed by darkness, though.

                “Jimmy boy,” he says.

                “How do you know my name?”

                “Wake up, Jimmy.”

                The darkness around his eyes solidified to become a pair of dark sunglasses. I can smell his nasty breath.

                “Time to wake up, Jim.”

                “Who are you?”

                “Stay with me, Jimmy! Wake up!”

 

                A scream filled the air around me, and the only thing that let me know who had uttered it was the pain. A red hot fire poker of light stabbed my eyes as I opened them. And suddenly as it had come, there was none. I took a deep breath and looked around, risking the pain. Oddly, but also thankfully, none came.

                Shane stood to my left, looking down at me. “Thank God you’re awake. What was that all about?”

                I sat up, confused that no pain came with the movement. “I have no idea.”

                “You had me worried, Jim, so I called Sam.”

                I could do nothing but stare at him. Sam was my boss. Today was his day off. His only day to spend time with his family. His wife would be angry and that anger would be transferred to Sam, and then to Shane or me.

                As if on cue, the door slammed open. I knew who was barging into the room before I looked over.

                “What the hell is going on here? Who died?” Sam yelled.

                “No one, sir!” Shane yelled.

                “Then why’d you call me in here?”

                “Sir…Jim fainted and I thought you would want to know.”

                “Is he okay?”

                “Apparently so. But I think you might need to take him to the hospital.”

                I got to my knees, ignoring Shane’s outstretched hands. “I really am fine. I just had a bad migraine, it’s gone now.”

                “Well I am so glad I could be of some help! I’m glad you’re okay, but now I’ve got to go explain to my wife why I wasn’t home when she woke up.” He stormed out of the room.

                I turned to Shane. “Why did you call him?”

                “I thought it would be the right thing to do.”

                Shane wasn’t very bright. He was the kind of guy who would call a Laundromat because he slit his wrist and got blood on his shirt, before calling for help. He was the kind of guy who would spray mace into his own eyes when he was threatened. In fact, that’s how he lost his left eye. One day he heard the alarm and went to respond. A man pointed a gun in his face, and when Shane took out his mace he pulled the trigger and everything was concentrated into his left eye. Before he knew what was happening, Shane had caused permanent damage.

                Disgusted at the very thought of staying here any longer, I stood and walked out the door. “I’m going on my rounds.” And I shut it before Shane could argue.

                The hallway before me was a long, straight and narrow path to a heavy wooden door. That door led out to the first floor of the mall, where the many shoppers sat in plastic chairs, eating in the food courts. When I reached this door and finally opened it, I was met by a wall of sound that, miraculously, didn’t cause a wave of pain to shoot up my spine. That was definitely a good thing.

                My rounds, usually consisting of casual walks around each of the three levels, would be made more interesting if I fell and writhed in pain, in the middle of a gathering crowd. I hoped that wouldn’t happen. For my job, I needed to stay in the shadows most of the time, in order to catch anyone shoplifting, harassing pretty girls, tempting children, and various other types of crimes.

                So I stayed underneath the second floor overhang, occasionally looking through the lines of people waiting for their food. This floor usually never had any trouble. The highest security risk here had been when a woman had snuck a small dog in with her purse. The dog had jumped out, ran away, and had stolen a little boy’s cheeseburger.

                So I moved up to the second floor, taking the public elevators. This level was built solely for shoppers on the go. More than one shop held the same items, so lines were scarce, or very short. Toy shops and children’s clothing constituted most of this floor, along with electronic and video game stores.

                An alarm went off, sending a pang of fear down my spine. I turned around to a shop called Toy’s For Tots and seen a man walking out of the shop. I had suspected gunpoint robbery, which was so popular with people these days. But the man was just a simple shoplifter, walking out of the store with merchandise he hadn’t paid for.

                He was wearing a pair of sunglasses that still had the tag attached, and I thought maybe, just maybe he forgot he was wearing them. That would be a simpler process to report than a shoplifter would.

                But, as I walked closer to confront the man, I noticed a bulge in his pants, telling me he had purposely stolen the glasses and whatever was in his jeans.                                

                I walked up to him and snatched the glasses away from him.

                “Can I see some identification, please?” I asked, fishing into my back pocket for my notepad.

                The man just looked at me blankly, as if he couldn’t see me, or didn’t speak English.

                “Sir? Can you talk?”

                This caught his attention, almost as if he couldn’t stand to look stupid. “Of course I can talk.” His voice was low and gravely, as if rocks had been poured down his throat and left to roll loosely around his vocal cords.

                He had pale skin, that in the right light, would also make it seem as if he had a dark tan. The man pulled out his wallet, which was so fat it was apparently full to the brim with money. I had no idea why he hadn’t simply paid for the stuff.

                Then, seeing the leg of a stuffed bear sticking out of his pants, I said, “Sir, please remove that bear from your pants.”

                The man looked down at the leg, blushed, pulled the bear out and then threw it to the ground.

                “Have you soiled anything else in there?” I asked him, truly hoping that was the only thing he had shoved down there. But no, there had to be more! The man pulled a set of hairpins and a package of batteries from his pants.

                “Is that all?” I was disgusted. These items could never be put back on the shelves again.

                “Yes,” he said as he finally pulled out his driver’s license.

                As I examined his I.D., making notes on the note card, I made small talk with the guy. “So, do you always carry that much money with you when you steal things?”

                The guy looked away.

                “How come you haven’t try to bribe me yet? With all that money you could escape freely, without a fine or time in jail.”

                The guy’s interest peaked, and he looked at me with a smile.

                “Of course, you should also know that I have no interest in money, because I have a bigger wad of cash in my wallet right now.”

                He looked away once more, obviously embarrassed of either stealing the items or because he had been caught so easily, and was now being made a fool of himself by a low-life security guard.

                “Sucks doesn’t it? Being caught by someone like me. You thought you’d score free stuff without consequences right? Guess not.” I had seen this situation replayed over and over again, never changing.

                “And now your surprised that I’ve got you figured out. Have you forgotten? I’m a security guard, I deal with the likes of you almost every day.”

                He took a few steps to the right as my face was buried in my notebook. He thought he could get away. And he probably could id he ran flat out, but I wouldn’t let him have that pleasure.

                “And you think that I can’t see you edging away from me?” I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back. “Now if you’ll follow me to the holding room, please.” I snapped a pair of handcuffs on him and dragged him by the chain.

                The holding room was in the security hallway, two doors down from the surveillance headquarters. He went in without a fight, and simply plopped down onto the single chair. I shut the door and left him alone in the small room that reminded me of an insane asylum’s cell.

                I plucked my radio from its clip at my side and spoke into it. “Shane, call the police. We’ve got a five-niner here.” I paused for a while, then continued, “and for God’s sake, Shane, don’t use the emergency number again. Call casually!”

                Five-niner meant shoplifter. The last time we had one, Shane had called 9-1-1 instead of the one we were required to call during five-nines. The police showed up expecting a shootout, and we had to persuade them that there wasn’t one, eventually landing Sam, my boss, with a hefty fine.

                I stepped into the room in time to find Shane was about to press the last digit for the emergency number. I ran over and pushed end on the phone, gave him a dirty look and began to dial myself.

Reviews

[Eric Kaun]

yea i have all of it done, and this is not the same as it was before... Its written differently, just with the same content, if you get what im saying. i'll post more later on.

[Tony Foss]

I noticed as well that there were errors in this posted story, probably many of the same ones you noticeed (so I wont go into detail; grammar, typos). I remember reading a hard copy of this a long time ago. It seems the same now that it did when I read it before. Is this a misjudgement on my part or is it the same?
If it is the same now as it was before, then I think you should go through and update it.

Have you worked on any more of this story or di you just have this?

I look forward to seeing more of this.

[Eric Kaun]

Hmmm.... it seems that after reading it posted i have seen more problems with it that previously... hmmmm.... i wonder what i shall do about that....