A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

“How about you sit on the couch,” she said. “and I’ll go get you a cup of water?”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said as he found a hold on the couch and sat.

She disappeared around the corner. He stared into the shadows, at the corners of the room, and saw nothing but walls. It was quiet, and he heard the sink turn on, run for a second, and then turn back off. When she returned to the living room, he was relieved. He stood and took the water from her hand.

“Thank you,” he said, lifting the cup to his mouth. He felt the river of water trickle down his throat in heavy waves, relieving the dry that had accumulated there.

She stared out the window, and he followed her gaze. It looked silent out there. But mostly, it looked dark. He stepped forward to get a better view out the window. The entire road aside from the house across the street was dark, and even that house was mostly dark, too, as it should have been at this time of the night.

He remembered how shaken his mother had been when they realized the neighboring house was empty. He knew she was wondering if the others were empty, and so was he. He suspected his sister may have been asking herself the same thing as well. Whereas you could see small traces of light coming from across the street, perhaps made by phones, or clocks, or televisions left on, the others, all up and down the street, at least from where he stood, looked to be in absolute darkness. It just didn’t feel natural.

21

Lisa ran from one house to another, the moonlight shining down in bright waves, lighting the whole street. Each house was as empty as the last. More importantly, they were all locked. She pulled at a doorhandle with everything she had but it did not move.

She let out a wretched sob. Please open. Please just open. She glanced back up the road, in the direction she had come. Even with the moon so incredibly bright, she couldn’t see whatever was after her. That’s because it was all things. The thing, the creature that was pursuing her, it was the street, the lights, the grass, everything.

She pulled on the door again, this time so hard that it left an imprint on her hand when she let go. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. All she could do was try the next house.

She sprinted across the yard to the next house. It was a mirror copy of the last, and the one before that, and all the rest. The windows in the front weren’t blocked, not like when she and the kids had looked. Inside, she could see the empty innards of the house. There was nobody within to help her.

When she got back out by the road, she could no longer see her house. Beyond forty or fifty yards, everything had been engulfed in darkness. At first, it looked like any other darkness. But when she stood there and let her eyes focus, she knew it was not. It moved and undulated like it was a physical mass, like it was alive.

She ran away from the thing. It followed, swallowing up everything in the world as it went. She bolted to another house and pulled on the door. Nothing. Then the next house. Nothing. She continued doing this, trying to get into a house, to find somewhere to hide, until she had run for so long that she knew she had to be miles from her home.

How long had it been? How long had she been running? Her internal clock told her that morning should have been on the horizon, yet the darkness clung, still, to everything, like an infection that had gone septic. Even the moon had disappeared. The light remained, as if it hung full in the sky just overhead, only it wasn’t. She looked up only to see an endless pit of blackness. How was there light but no source?

After hours more of running, she arrived, impossibly, back at her own house. She stood before it, shocked that it was there. She couldn’t imagine how this could be. Had she turned enough times that, at some point, she had reversed direction?

She ran for the door, already screaming her husband’s name. He would hear her and come out to help. He had to.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled, but nothing happened. As if made of stone, the door handle did not even wiggle. She pulled at it again, twisting with all her might. She was drained and couldn’t take anymore.

“Richard! Toby!” She shouted all their names in turn.

Nobody called back. She ran out to the road and scanned the ground. Near the curb, she found a large rock. She picked it up and ran back toward the house. But instead of the door, she went for the window.

Just as she was about to heave back and slam the rock through the glass, she froze. Her eyes were seeing, but her mind was not believing. On the other side of the glass, where she had eaten pizza with her family earlier that day, was nothing. The light glared through the windows, leaving none of the house’s contents to her imagination.

All of it was empty, cleared out completely. Like they had never lived there at all. Like nobody in the world had ever lived there. She screamed, launching the rock into the window. It hit with full force and vanished. Her mind was expecting the sound of shattering glass, and when it didn’t come, she just stared ahead, confused.

Finally, she snapped back into it. She went back to the road and grabbed another rock, not waiting a second before cranking back and throwing it at the