Darkest time

One snowy night, three years ago, a killer kills his sister, leaving a town in mourning. Now the killer is back.

The wind is cold against his face. He is standing at the edge of the small town, snow swirling around him, the patches of ice along the sidewalk glittering in the dim lights of the various street lamps. He goes forward, slowly. For he has unfinished business with this town. He stops right in front of the main building and sneaks around, looking to see if any lights are on, if there is anything that can stop him from entering. Fortunately, all the lights were off. Utter blackness. He feeds off of the impenetrable blackness of ones soul, feeding off of their fear and horror that consumes them daily.

He reaches into his pocket and takes out something sharp, something that sparkles in the dim light. It is a knife. He has always been obsessed with knives...they are the sort of thing he liked as a kid. His parents thought he was crazy then.

They are all dead now, of course.

He has been stalking people for year. It is something of a profession. Jobs won't take him, because they look at his criminal record, and he gets money from making these hits.

He walks through the town now, careful not to slip on the ice. He has a job to do. And he is going to do it without failure of any type. He peers around the corners, looking for his prey. He is looking for a young woman of about twenty five. His sister.

He blends in with a shadow as a mysterious car drives by. He thinks everything is mysterious. He is a paranoid schizophrenic. He turns around the corner this time. Music emanates from a nightclub, shaking the ground like an earthquake. And there, right behind the curls of rope, he sees her, dressed in a tight little black dress, talking to the nightclub owner. Presumably wanting in for free.

The owner of the nightclub says, “No,” and pushes her away. Alright. Perfect timing. The man moves forward with the knife in hand, and once he reaches his sister, his hands clamp her throat.

He drags her into the alley before anybody could see.

That is how he could get his victims, and not get caught. Utter seclusion when doing these acts of debauchery. He raises the blade and punctures through her skin, blood spraying across his face like water from a hose. He bashes her head against the cold, snowy, cement wall for a few seconds. The back of her hair is matted with blood.

Blood has been sprayed all over the snow.

He can't clean that up.

He drags the bloody body, who is only partially dead, toward a dumpster, lifts her up, and tosses her. While in the dumpster she dies. He watches her from the outside.

Finally, he thought.

I am standing in the center of town, where the murder took place so many years ago. I can still remember the scene like it was yesterday; the woman lying in a pool of blood, completely surrounded by the police and detectives, taking pictures and investigating. Everyone of the town knew her and loved her. She had been a generous part of this town, always giving money to some of the homeless people that roam the streets, and help out with various charities scattered around the town, and even outside of it, toward the city.

I walk toward the scene where it happened. It haunts me day in and day out, in my dreams and in every waking our of my life. She had been like a sister to me, and was killed by her own brother. Nobody had found the killer. He just, sort of, vanished.

The snow is swirling around me in vast, crystalline patterns. As I look up, noticing the car coming toward me, the wind bites at my face like teeth, causing me to shiver even more. I step out of the way as the car passes, going a little faster than usual. Not many people are out yet. It is very early in the morning. I usually get up early because it gives me time to think before the accompaniment of another people shatters the glass window of my thoughts. I hear the crunching of snow around me and think, oh, that is very unusual. I look up. My friend is walking toward me, Sarah. She has been with me through thick and thin no matter what has happened to our relationship, because, over the years I must admit, it has been very strained. She's still an excellent friend a person could have though.

“Hey Manuel,” Sarah says, walking toward me, arms outstretched. “I see you are out here.”

“Yea I am,” I say, “remembering the precious life that was taken from us all those years ago. It seems like only yesterday that I was talking with her, discussing books and writing, and then, just in the blink of an eye she was gone, dead from this world. It's hard.”

“I know it is,” Sarah says, “when my mother and father died a couple years ago from a car crash I didn't know how I would handle it. Now I keep momentos of them in my room�"tokens celebrating their life and how much they meant to me.”

“I just don't get how somebody could do something like that to a human.”

“I understand. She was near and dear to us all.” A couple of tears fall down my face. I don't particularly want to cry in front of Sarah�"she has been a girl I have crushed on my whole life living in this town�"but I just can't help it. The death of this person who has meant so much to me is overwhelmingly sad; and to know that the killer is probably still out there right now, hunting, killing perhaps even searching for this town until his inexplicable arrival where he can tear through the rest of us and singlehandedly destroy a small town, bring death and destruction to all these people�"

Stop Manny, stop, the voice in my head is saying. This always happens. I always think of the worst possible situation and twisted it around in my head until my brain reveals all of the possible terrifying things that could happen. It has happened even more since this case.

“Want me to leave you alone?”

“That would be ideal.”

“Alright, I'll be going.” She waved, looking sad, concerned for him, and she turned around and went back toward the large, foster home that was the building breathing fresh new life into this town. If it wasn't for a couple of innovative people who decided, six months ago, to run a foster home in the center of town, then this town would have gone down and quickly.

I, again, look at the place that she had died. I envision the blood smearing across the rocks and splashed into the snow in dark, circling patterns of horror and rage. My heart begins pounding fast and I begin to think how it would feel, what it would be like to have the killer right here, right now, vulnerable, lying on the ground�"wonder what if would feel like to have him cringing underneath me as I raise another fist and smash him in the face repeatedly, the blood splashing from his nose. Wondering how much pain he would be in, trying to inflict more pain upon him than what had occurred with her.

It's a pleasant thought, but also a dirty, sickening thought that would church the stomachs of the normal folk, have someone locked up in jail, and also something that would make a man crazy, trying to prove to himself that revenge is the best option.

These thoughts swim around in my head constantly, and it is nearly impossible to expel them from my subconscious; it is something, as I mentioned previously, that is driving me insane as I sit down and right this. I know having the killer killed won't right any of the wrongs, but I guess it will make me feel better, more at peace.

I turn around and walk down the street, being very wary of the two cars that are about to cross. I quickly cross the street and go to the church. I need some God in my life. I am a catholic, living in a town of Catholics, and usually going to the local church helps me when I am having problems, such as the extremities of what is plaguing me at this very instant. I walk up the steps, careful not to slip on the thick ice that was seemingly dripping down the stairs, and open the door. I walk into a nicely heated narthex, with a couple of tables situated next to a large wall. Papers are covering the tables; forms to fill out for the annual picnic that will be held a week from today on a supposed warmer day and cards that people fill out if they want to donate money to the church.

I open the door and see rows upon rows of pews stretched out throughout an entire large room. A cross, with a stone sculpture of Jesus hanging on it, is suspended from the ceiling. A couple of paintings of religious events line either wall and in the front wall, on either side, are two sculptures; one of Joseph, and one of Mary, the mother and father of Jesus.

And at the altar stands the priest, Father Winslow.

“Hello Father, may I have a word?” I ask.

“Surely Manual, step on inside my office,” Winslow says. His body is draped in dark satin clothing. “What is it you want?”

“I need some help, some guidance,” I say.

“About what? That murder?”

“Yes, Father,” I say, “I am having troubled thoughts about revenge and about killing or torturing the murderer.”

“Those are natural thoughts. But remember Jesus did say, 'You shall love thy neighbor, as thyself.'”

“That is hard though. Considering the circumstances.”

“Believe me I know. I've had these thoughts. And I have had doubts in religion and God before, and that's coming from a priest,” Father says, “just remember that revenge won't help anything. This man is most likely gone away from here anyway...let the works of God or the proper authorities take care of him when the time is right.”

“You're right, you're right.”

“God works in mysterious ways,” Father Winslow says, “just stop dwelling on it. There was nothing you could've done to prevent this from happening. I know you are sad, I am to, we all are, but we gotta transfer our sadness into friendship and support, not needless violence trying to make up for something that has already happened.”

“I understand. It's just hard.”

“Yes it is. But you will overcome this sadness you are feeling�"everyone always overcomes the trials and tribulations in our lives, that is why God made us strong. You will always feel some sort of sadness for what happened, but just remember, even though she has passed away, she still resides deep in our hearts. So she has never really left us.”

“Thanks a lot Father. May I just have a few moments to myself to pray? Then I will be on off home.”

“Certainly. You have a nice day now.” I turned around and leave the office, going to one of the pews in front of the cross of Jesus.

“I pray that everything will be okay with the people of this town, and that we can overcome the loss of such an awesome and spirited individual who was such a driving force of this community. I pray that he has come to a safe place and that her spirit will always stay safe for eternity. In Gods name, amen.” I do the sign of the cross. I stand up, turned around, and walk out of the church.

A black sedan stops right at the entrance to the town. The door opens and a man steps out, wearin a dark cloak and a bowler hat. He has a pistol slung across his waist. He moves slowly from the car and walks into the seemingly deserted town, looking down at the scene before him, the place he had been once before, the place where he had committed such an act of violence and debauchery that tore this entire town apart. It feels good to have been apart of such mass chaos and dark, floods of sadness, anger, and emotion....it is unlike any other feeling he has ever felt. As he walks toward the grotesque shapes of the black rocks, he can still picture the dark globs of blood that were slowly dripping down, the sprays of bright red that colored the snow, the way her cold flesh felt as he dragged her body away.

The scene is something that he remembers very well�"and that is something that doesn't really happen that often. He looks up into the sky and sees the white snow falling through the air, curling around him like a white rope, the clouds rushing in, pulsating, pumping more and more snow through the air. The wind feels biting against his face�"he knows that he would have to get out of the snow, and soon, but he figures that he shouldn't go inside any building of the town, at least not yet. Because much of them would recognize him from newspaper articles and news stories, and his cover would be blown already.

The thing is he has come back to finish the job.

There is one more person that he wants to come and get before he leaves and vanishes from this town forever and ever, vanishes from the public eye never to be seen or heard from again. This person is someone who was friends with his last victim, the woman he had killed those three years ago; someone who he figures would get in the way if he is kept alive. The man doesn't have a name to match a face yet, but he has seen photographs hanging among the walls at the public library, containing images of this boy of merely eighteen, this boy who is so defenseless, this boy who is just sitting there, unknowingly waiting for the mass slaughter that is to come.

His boots crunch on the snow as he turns around and goes back toward his car. He pops open the trunk, takes a sleeping bag, and walks a little ways into the town, leaving the car where it is. He remembers there being an abandoned, dark house at the edge of the town, just a couple of miles from where he is now, so he decides to go there and sleep for the night. It will surely be warmer than sleeping out here in the cold with a storm raging, the snow falling at a rapid pace, so rapid that within an hour he could be completely buried alive in snow.

The killing begins tomorrow.

It is dark outside. I sit in my bed, well past my bed time, watching the sparkling flakes of snow fall to the ground, fascinated with the trajectory that they are taking, some falling straight down, others curving to the left or the right. I am worried about something....it just doesn't seem right. I don't know what it I yet�"perhaps it is the paranoia that I feel every now and then, the insane, crazy feeling that occurs because of what happened....because of the killer. I have a strange, eerie feeling coursing through my body that makes me unable to sleep, and even if I was able to sleep, I think certain dreams would plague my head.

I feel the cold drafts coming through the window. Something isn't right. A storm is coming, a figurative storm of death that destruction that will tear through this town, worse than even what happened three years previously. I can feel it.

I lie my head down in my pillow and pull my covers up to my chin. The air is a little warmer under the covers, but not by much.

And I just think of my life to come.

Eventually I fall into a dreamless sleep.

The man awakens from his slumber. The sun is shining. The storm has stopped. He moves through the house, the creaking of the wood under his feet a witches cackle around a cauldron. The man looks outside and sees a couple of early risers, children, outside, enjoying the weather, having snowball fights and ducking behind cars, the parents either inside asleep or irresponsible. He folds up his sleep bag, slings the pistol back around his waist, and takes a knife he has hidden in a secret compartment of the sleeping bag. He slips that into the waistband of his jeans.

The man is ready. Prepared. It is going to happen today. He goes down the stairs, opens the door, and steps into the bitterly cold air.

The sedan is still sitting there, where he has left it.

His feet crunch on the snow. People have noticed him now. Most likely kids. Good. They don't pay much attention to the news anyway.

Welcome home, he thinks.

The sun shines through my window. I stand up, not believing that I have actually slept.

“Manuel, get down here!” mom calls. Must be for breakfast.

“Coming!” I shout back. I slip from the covers and go downstairs.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“Actually pretty good,” I say, putting some eggs on a plate.

“Better than yesterday?” mom asks.

“Yea.”

“No dreams?”

“Nope.” This is a typical morning. Mom always does this, to gauge how I am feeling because she has always considered bringing me to a psychaitrist to help me cope with the death of my friend. I told her I don't need it, and eventually she just stopped asking about it. Now she just finds out indirectly whether or not that is true.

“That's good honey.”

“I had a nice talk with the priest yesterday.”

“About what?”

“Could we lay off the questions until later? I'm still very tired,” I say, which is only half true. I am tired, sure, but not that tired....I just don't want to answer anymore of these silly questions this early in the morning.

“Okay, that's fine,” she says. We sit in silence for a few moments. I turn to look out the window, admiring the beauty of the storm that happened last night, when I saw a dark figure moving through the snow, contrasting with the silvery whiteness of the powder. I go to the window and look outside�"it looks like a big, hulking man, carrying something in his hands, but I can't make out what that thing is and who this shadow is.

“What's wrong?” mom asks.

“Come here, look at this,” I say, pointing. She sees it to. The shadow is moving rather quickly through the snow, seemingly looking for something.

“Who is it?”

“I don't know,” I say. I am just about to bundle up and go outside, see who it is, when the phone rings, and I automatically think it is bad news. Lately when this happens, I always think the bad things. I dash to the phone and pick it up. A frantic breathing on the phone, a female, and then;

“Stay inside! He's back,” the woman, Sarah, says.

“W...Who?” I ask.

“The killer...the one who killed...” Suddenly a screaming sound. I drop the phone. Hear more breathing on it.

A cold voice says, “I know where you are. And you know where I am. Meet me here in five minutes, pronto, or the b***h dies.” I can hear her struggling through the phone. I let out an explosion of tears...this can't be happening.

It just can't!

“I need to go, now,” I say.

“Where?”

“Sarah's house.”

“Now? Why? What's wrong?”

“He has her.” I pulled on my boots, throw on a heavy coat and a scarf. My heart is pounding in my chest, a drum tapping out a song of misery. I hurry outside, feeling the warmness of the sun heating my face just a tad before a brief wind whips through the air, creating a cold chill. Snow crunches under my boots. I nearly slip on the ice.

Her door is open.

I allow myself inside.

“Why there you are,” he says, smiling. He has a gun strapped to his waist. A knife is in his hand, pressed against Sarah's flesh. His hand is clutching the top of her hair.

“Please, please,” Sarah pleads.

“Shut up b***h,” the man says, “so do you know who I am?”

“Yes...I do....” I say.

“My name?”

“No.”

“I am Leonardo Corazone, and I killed my sister and my entire family. They hated me, made fun of me, so I had to get them, teach them a f*****g less.”

“No you didn't. You could have just left, been on your own. You didn't need to cause all of this heartache and sadness and fear throughout this town,” I say, trying to reason with him.

“Be alone? I was already alone. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to kill them. They gave me every reason to murder them. They deserved it.”

“It didn't have to go like this.”

“Yes it did, believe me,” Leonardo says through gritted teeth. “They tortured. I was the brunt of all their jokes, I was beat up, everything....”

“Not Anna, she wouldn't do that.”

“No not her. But as she came down and saw her parents dead, I had to kill her to. It was the only way, so she wouldn't tell anyone. So I took her to the rocks and killed her. Just like that.”

“Why are you back?” I ask.

“To finish the job.”

“What?”

“Kill you,” he says, laughing.

“Put Sarah, down, she has nothing to do with this,” I say. “If it is truly me you want.”

“Nah, it's more fun this way.”

“Stop it will you?” I say. “I didn't do anything to deserve this.”

“You associated with her didn't you? Petulant little fool.” He throws Sarah to the floor. Her hea bounces off the hardwood. I twist run, try to run. He grabs my legs and yanks me to the floor. A pain sears up the entire left side of my body as I wriggle forward, trying to crawl outside. He takes the knife and cuts my hand with it....blood pours from the slits. He grabs my hands, making them weak, and pins them to the floor, trying to put the knife to my throat, to kill me when....

Sarah stands on her knees and throws her entire body weight into Leonardo. He sprawls to the floor. Sarah grabs his pistol and aims it at him.

“You fools. You don't understand why I am doing this do you? Redemption, self sacrifice, I need this, it's in my blood,” he says, standing up.

“It won't end like this,” I say.

“Stupid f****r,” he says, looking at me. He lunges at me, grabs me by the shirt, but then there is a loud, thunderous boom and my face is splattered with blood, though thankfully not mine. Sarah is standing over the bloody body of Leonardo as he lies on the kitchen floor. People have surrounded the house, and the police were right there. Sarah drops the pistol and falls to the ground, crying.

I go to her, crouch down to her, hold her. An ambulance comes up to the door and three men wearing blue clothing take her and I away on stretchers. I glance at my mom one more time.

And thank God that I am still alive.