It Comes for Us All

The bright light practically stunned him. He stepped back and covered his eyes with his free hand, the other across his chest, gripping at his heart. Just a wicked case of indigestion most likely. People on the dance floor had stopped and were crowded around someone who was probably just trying to show off. The pain had stopped as had his high so he still felt like calling it a night. Besides, it was a long train ride home and he didn’t want to be up all night and miss work the next day.

 

He delicately made his way around the mass of people at the club and reached the door. He felt much better after stepping outside. The club had felt so cold even with all the people crammed in it. He was just glad he had gotten out of there. He felt like he had almost passed out right there on the dance floor.

 

He walked down the dark street, shuffling his feet. The water from a fresh rain kicked up with each step. The night at the club had been crazy. Amazing booze, amazing drugs, and best of all, the women. Top choice tonight. Chalk one up to the big man upstairs for that one. With all the bad luck he’d been having lately, it was nice to have something else to focus on.

 

He could see something out of the corner of his right eye; a dark figure in an overcoat and brimmed hat just watching him. He couldn’t make out anything else about this… person. Except his eyes. He knew it was impossible, but the guys green eyes seemed to be glowing. Maybe he had a bit too much tonight for his own good.

 

“Hey, what are you lookin’ at pal?” he said. He spread his arms out, challenging the other.

 

There was no reply, silence filling the void between them. The guy pointed at him and dragged his thin, pale, finger along his throat as if to say he was dead.

 

He laughed. “Oh, is that right? Why don’t you come over here and prove it, tough guy?” What a joke. He had dealt with punks before, this one was no different. Wasn’t he? He felt a chill down his spine. Something didn’t seem right. His vision blurred a bit and he began to feel a bit nauseous.

 

The figure disappeared without a sound around the corner into an unlit alley.

 

“Christ, what a night.” he said, picking a cigarette out of his pocket. He needed something to calm his nerves. The small packet of pills he had with him that night was missing.

 

“Oh, that’s perfect, just perfect,” he said.

 

He almost expected the punk to come bother him again but he made it to the subway entrance without seeing him. The subway was practically a second home to him. For as long as he could remember he had been taking the it everywhere he went. It was usually quiet this late at night. The only people there were those going home from being out too late at a bar or getting off a late shift at work. The homeless man he occasionally saw wasn’t there tonight. Probably found himself a nice park bench, he thought.

 

He walked into an empty section picking a seat as far away from anybody as possible. The punk had freaked him out a little, that’s all. He would go home and get some sleep and then he would feel better.

 

The train finally got to his stop and he wasted no time getting home. He had picked a place close to the subway for that reason.

 

His little apartment was above an old store of some kind, but it had shut down long ago. He walked through the front door and went straight to his bed. He lay there for a while, trying to find a comfortable position and finally gave up. He wasn’t nauseous anymore, but he still felt a little bit lightheaded.

 

Late night TV was his favorite. Anything you could possibly want to waste your money on was there for you to buy. Steak knives? Channel 32. How about the Ab Flexor? Channel 14. He sat there , flipping through the countless shows and infomercials waiting for sleep to overtake him. For some reason his thoughts kept turning to that punk he’d seen earlier.

 

What the hell did that guy mean, he wondered. He had felt fine the whole day. Well, he hadn’t felt good or bad or really anything for that matter. He didn’t know why it was bothering him so much. Something in his demeanor made him uneasy.

 

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he saw the same dark figure on the television screen. He felt the same cold tingle as before. On screen the figure was chasing somebody. The man he was chasing ran through the street screaming for help but nobody did. It was as if they couldn’t even see him.

 

The figure didn’t even seem to be running, but rather gliding across the ground incredibly fast, almost wraith-like. It leaped onto the man, tearing him to pieces. Blood sprayed all over as his limbs were torn from his body. The ground was coated in the red, sticky liquid that was supposed to be inside of the unlucky man.

 

The camera panned around as the wraith finished his gory deed. He saw himself on the screen lying in a puddle of his blood and body parts. The wraith grinned beneath the overcoat and hat, his eyes blazing with green fire. It dragged its finger across its throat and leapt toward the screen.

 

Light poured through his window startling him from his sleep. It was well after noon and well after he was supposed to be at work. Good thing he had already changed into his work clothes. He looked for his phone so he could call his boss and let him know what was up, but he couldn’t find his phone. Probably left it at the club last night.

 

He raced down the stairs and down the sidewalk. He passed through crowds of people minding their own business, not even giving him a second glance. As he ran to the subway he felt a very strong sense of deja vu. The place, the people, everything looked familiar. Then he realized that everything he was seeing now, he saw before on TV. The man who was being chased by the guy in the overcoat. The people oblivious to what was going on. His mangled and dead body lying in the street, and the monstrous figure grinning over his corpse.

 

He turned around, fearing what could be behind him. Instead of a dark figure, he stood facing the front end of a Mack truck barreling down on him. He screamed and shut his eyes as the truck plowed right through him.

 

As the truck pulled away, he realized he was not only still standing there, but he was completely and utterly intact. The truck hadn’t smashed him to a pulp like it should have. It had instead passed through him as if he weren’t even there.

 

He walked away astonished. What just happened wasn’t possible, but he had no explanation why it did. He headed aimlessly, forgetting about the subway and work. He just couldn’t comprehend it. Everywhere he went, it seemed, dogs would bark at him. He never really had any trouble with dogs before, but now they were tucking their tales between their legs and backing away from him.

 

“You’re lost, aren’t you?” a haggard voice said.

 

He turned to see an old gypsy lady sitting by the side of the road. Her little wooden box that she used as a stool had probably seen better days. He sat down.

 

The pewter earring’s she wore dangled nearly to her shoulders. One was an eagle, talons clamped onto something he couldn’t quite make out. The other was a snake formed into a circle with it eating its own tail. She never looked up from the ground as he began to talk.

 

“Something’s… happening to me. I don’t know how to explain it,” he said as he took a seat on the small stool in front of her.

 

“There are many things that cannot be explained in this life, my child.”

 

“I should have died today,” he said. “I don’t know… a truck ran right through me without even hitting me.” His hands were in his lap, clenching and unclenching. This old woman would have to think he was nuts. Instead, she simply nodded.

 

“I have seen many of your kind, you lost souls. Always looking for an answer from me and my sage advice.”

 

She smiled, showing her crooked teeth, yellow and decaying. She looked up and stared, not at him, but rather through him.

 

“But the truth is,” she said “the answer is inside of you. It is you who must face what has not been faced. Seek within yourself the truth, and you will find your way. Or he will find it for you.”

 

Her eyes never met his. He could tell by their glaze that she was nearly blind. The old, wrinkled skin of hers, he saw, was tough as leather from hardship. But her face showed him that she truly had a gift.

 

“What do you mean ‘he will find it for me? Do you mean the guy in the black overcoat?” he said.

 

“Go to the place where you saw the light. You will find answers there” With that she began flipping through her tarot cards, so he got up and walked away.

 

The place where he saw the light? He wasn’t sure what the hell that was supposed to mean. None of this was making any sense at all. The only thing he knew for sure is that he didn’t want to come face to face with the dark figure. He didn’t know why, but he felt that something even deeper than the images on the TV that he was bad news and something terrible would happen to him if he did see him.

 

He walked around trying to figure out just what she had said. The place where he saw the light. After a while he found himself standing in front of the club he was at last night. It had been a pretty decent night, other than the weird cloaked guy. Come to think of it, he really didn’t remember too much of what went on inside the club. He remembered dancing and then he had a really bad pain in his chest. He couldn’t remember what he had done for the few hours that he was there. Then it came to him. Just before he had left a bright light practically engulfed him. It had given him a slight headache and so he left the club. But right before that, he couldn’t remember.

 

Okay, that explains some of it, but why was there police tape across the doorway to the club? Before he had an answer, the cloaked figure appeared, grinning underneath that hood. The figure pointed at him and made the same gesture as before.

 

“I don’t know what you want, buddy, but leave me alone, all right?” he said. He could feel his body trembling with cold. That seemed to be all he could feel these days.

 

“I want you, that is all. If you don’t come with me, I’ll have to take you. Piece, by piece,” the figure said.

 

He could almost see into the hooded figures cloak, which looked like it was full of insects, crawling over his entire form. This monster couldn’t be human. There was no way. It had to be something else. Something worse.

 

“What is inside there?” he said, still trembling.

 

“That should not concern you. Your fate lies with me.”

 

The figure moved toward him with an outstretched arm. He knew he had to get inside to see the truth or whatever he would find in there. Whatever was in there would be better than anything that was out here for him, anyway.

 

As the figure moved closer to him, a car was about to pass by. He instinctively jumped into the car. Just like how the truck had passed through him, except this time, he focused on remaining in the car. He could see the figure fading away in the rearview mirror.

 

“We’re almost there, don’t worry,” said the driver.

 

The woman sitting next to him was panting and sweating. Her bulging stomach was about ready to release the life it contained within.

 

“Just hurry up, will you, Dick?” she screamed. Sweat poured off her face.

 

The hospital wasn’t too far away and they were there within a few minutes. He followed the couple to the delivery room. He’d never seen a baby born before. But as he walked down the corridor, something drew him away. He ended up going to a room where people were hooked up to all sorts of wires and tubes.

 

“Man, you guys are in bad shape, huh?” he said.

 

He walked further down the row and stopped dead in his tracks. On the farthest bed he saw himself lying there, being kept alive by a food tube and a respirator.

 

“No way… I …”

 

A couple of doctors walked in carrying some charts and stopped at the bed his body was in.

 

“This guy here. He’s the one I was telling you about.” said doc one to doc two. “Must’ve got a hold of some bad stuff for this to happen. There’s practically no brain activity left.”

 

“We couldn’t get in touch with any family because, well, there aren’t any,” said the other doctor.

 

He stood there, mouth agape. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the situation. How could he be there on the bed, being kept alive by machines, when he was standing there in the room?

 

“There’s nothing we can do about it now. We have to let this one go.”

 

“No! Don’t do that,” he screamed at the two doctors. “That’s me. You can’t kill me.”

 

They began disconnecting the various tubes, leaving the respirator to the last. He felt that shiver of cold again and saw the dark man in the overcoat staring at him from across the room.

 

“You are mine,” it said. “He already had his chance to claim you and you turned away. Now it is my turn, and I am not as forgiving as he is.”

 

ser to the lost soul. He could hear something coming from underneath that hat that sounded like grinding metal and bone; the beast preparing for its meal.

“Vaya con Dios, my friend,” said the first doctor as he disconnected the final hose.

 

He saw his body exhale the last of its breath. The heart monitor started whining, letting the doctors know something bad was happening. The sporadic rhythm finally gave way to the flat-line of death.

 

He was immediately engulfed in light, the same as in the club, only this time it seemed much brighter. He could hear a voice in the background, assuring him that everything would be alright, and that the cloaked figure would not harm him where he was going.

 

For the first time in what seemed like forever, he felt warmth cover his body, from head to toe. The cold had disappeared completely, leaving him basking in this brilliant, warm light.

 

“Who are you?” he asked

 

He didn’t hear the voice, rather than feel it, but it said that wasn’t important. He would be taken care of forever. He was lifted up into the light and out of the building. The world grew small beneath him as he headed home.

 

Reviews

[Britt Foster]

very interesting! I enjoyed this very much, although I don't quite understand the black cloaked figures. If they weren't going to hurt him, why did they keep threatening him?

But all in all, i loved this story! :3