The entryway felt too small as we waited.  The door was closed and locked yet I feared that was insufficient to restrain whatever hell had been unleashed on Earth.  I thought of what happened to the screen door as I looked at the large solid-wood structure that stood between us and what was outside.  I wondered if that barrier would be torn from its hinges as easily as the other had been.

My hand rested tentatively on the handle.  I feared it might start turning as some unspeakable thing tried to open it.  Considering the outside door had been ripped from its frame with no effort whatsoever, I felt more than a bit silly for thinking the main door would be treated any differently.  As if the horror a few inches away had suddenly gained some semblance of manners and civility.

Yet my hand resting on the metal knob communicated something else to me: it quickly became ice cold.  It was as if the other side had been submerged in liquid oxygen.  I pulled my hand away quickly as the chill became uncomfortable.  I didn’t doubt what rested right outside, against the outside of the door, separated from us by a flimsy wooden construct and a few measly metal bolts.

“It’s getting colder,” I mumbled as I stepped away from the door.  “The door knob… it’s getting colder.”

I wasn’t sure why I repeated myself but was once again subjected to an internal smirk as a quote from Stephen King’s Storm of the Century came to mind: “Born in vice, say it twice… eh, Davey?  At least twice.”  I certainly had my vices.

While I restrained the sick laugh that welled up within me, the image leaped into my mind of Andre Linoge staring down young Davey Hopewell and his parents in the middle of the town hall during that particular expedition into Mr. King’s imagination.  The repercussions of that scene in stark contrast with the horror we had been thrust into made short work of whatever enjoyment I found in the memory of that fictional tale.

Would I fare as well as my namesake from the film?  I was shaken to my core by the possible answers to that question.

Gradually, I took another step back but didn’t turn away from the door.  Fear kept me from turning my back on the abomination that waited on the other side.  If it forced its way through as it had when George touched it, I wanted to see it coming.

Another step back brought me next to my father.  I glanced at him.  He was crying the silent weep of a man who’d lost his best friend yet had no time for his own grief.  He needed to cry for both George and Mosko, and I suspected he needed to cry for Brogan as well.  I hoped that was as far as he would need to travel down the road of loss.

I turned the other way and saw my mother trying to comfort both Margaret and Helene.  All three huddled together in the doorway to the living room.  The McCreary mother and daughter wept uncontrollably yet almost silently—out of fear, I guessed.

Mom’s tears were also unvoiced.  Like Dad she wept for two lost friends, but I also realized each of them wept for us.  Prematurely?  Perhaps, but if so, just barely I feared.

I reached up and wiped tears from my own face.  No one should have to see such a thing, I thought, and no one should have to live through this.  No one should have to face this darkness.

Two warning lights on the alarm panel next to the door drew me from my self-pity.  They blinked methodically, the silent scream of danger from a device not capable of understanding the importance of its role.

I needed to look at it.  My legs strongly disagreed and made certain my feet stayed firmly in place.  I was frozen to the floor where I stood and saw the distance between me and the door as a gulf too wide to cross, or too dangerous.  Or both.

I took a deep breath and willed myself to move.  A few steps left me in front of the panel.  I immediately turned to my father and said quietly in hopes the others wouldn’t here, “The generator is in alarm.  It also shows the batteries are almost dead.”

“What?” he whispered.

I shook my head and said with unnecessary frustration, “I don’t know how.  I just know we’re going to lose power very soon.”  I looked up and around and couldn’t understand how that much electricity could disappear in such a short time.  I turned back to him and continued with less irritation, “Maybe the batteries were already low and a generator failure meant they couldn’t be recharged.”

For the first time in my life, I had lied to my father.  The batteries constantly charged and discharged when the main power was on.  I didn’t remember how many batteries there were, but I did remember the installer saying they cycled individually.  That is, one would discharge and recharge before another in sequence would do the same.  The intention was to make certain as much battery power as possible was available at any one time while continuing to exercise all of them.

When I’d looked at the panel earlier, it showed a full charge.  How they’d lost so much power so quickly was beyond me.  It was then I desperately wished I had paid more attention in high school physics.  Not doing so came back to haunt me at the worst possible time.  Despite having no answer for the battery status, I suspected I knew what had happened to the generator.

Turning from the panel and walking back to my father, I said, “We need to go downstairs.  It’s already getting colder in here and we can’t build a fire without opening a fireplace to the outside.  We need to see if we can fix the generator.”

He nodded and said, “I agree.”  Then to Mom he added, “Honey, why don’t you take Margaret and Helene into the living room and see if you can’t make them comfortable?  We have to go check something.”

“Okay,” she replied with a weary yet trusting look.  “Be careful.”  She turned her head to the new orphan and new widow and whispered quietly to them.  Although still crying, Margaret nodded in response before the whole group turned and walked into the living room.

“Where’s the basement?” Dad asked.

“The door’s under the stairs,” I replied as I pointed down the hall.  I reached into the kitchen and pulled the emergency flashlight from its base, and then I said, “We might need this.  You know, just in case it’s dark.”

He offered an uncomfortable snicker that I immediately recognized as obligatory.  Nothing seemed funny anymore, and if it did, it seemed inappropriate to openly recognize it.

His seriousness was evident when he asked, “How much longer do you think the batteries will last?”

“I don’t know.”  I shook my head as much in response as in disgust toward my ignorance of how my house worked.  “But that’s not the biggest concern anyway.”  His eyes widened but I didn’t wait for him to express his dismay before I continued, “If the batteries fail and the generator won’t recharge them or provide power, we’ll lose water as well as electricity.  The systems are redundant but weren’t built for these kinds of failures.  I also never thought it would be impossible to run to Joe’s or your place in case of an emergency.”

“It’s gonna get cold too, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded.  The concern on his face was evident.

Unfortunately, I’d not yet dropped my major concern in his lap.  As we made our way down the hall and stopped in front of the basement door, I thought it as appropriate a time as any.  “Dad, wait.  Listen.  The basement is sealed because of the generator.  This door is like the outside windows: no air moves between the inside of the house and what’s on the other side.  That was just in case the generator ever had a problem and vented fumes or something into the basement.  At least it wouldn’t affect anyone inside.  I know the generator is new—it was installed less than a year ago—but I don’t know if that means the damn thing is perfectly sealed or not.  My guess is it’s failing because whatever’s outside has gotten into it through the vent.  Now, you know more about engines than I do, so tell me: if something got into the generator through its exhaust, could it get out of there and into the basement?”

He took a deep breath as he thought about the question.  “Well shit, son, I don’t rightly know for sure.  I’m no mechanic.  I can find my way around an engine but don’t know all there is to know.”  He paused for a moment and took another deep breath.  I could see the consideration on his face.  And then he continued, “I honestly don’t know, Dave.  It’s possible.  I suppose if the motor isn’t running, the whole system could be sealed and would keep it bottled up.  But I’m guessin’ here.”

I looked at him closely.  His concern was real and bordered on panic.  I could almost feel it coming off him like heat.  I’m sure it was mixing with my own since I didn’t have the answers and was scared to death to open that door.

Nevertheless, I said it: “Is it worth it, Dad?  Is the risk worth the reward of opening this door?”  I reached out and put my hand on it as if there was some kind of confusion about what door.

“Son, we can’t live long without water.  I know that much.  The cold won’t be so hard to deal with assumin’ you’ve got blankets and such, but water’s a problem.  And what about food?  What if the refrigerator and freezer fail?”

“Food’s not so much an issue since there’s plenty of nonperishable stuff we can eat.  It ought to last four people several days, I guess.  Maybe a week?  Give or take?  I agree the cold’s not so much a concern either, although it could get very uncomfortable if we’re in here long enough.  Water’s my main concern.  If the power goes out, what’s already in the tanks is all we’ll have.  That’s about a thousand gallons if I’m remembering correctly.  I don’t know how long that’ll last since I don’t how much we’ll use or even need.  And we certainly can’t go outside and pump by hand…”  I trailed off not wanting to consider that possibility.  It’s not a possibility! my brain shouted.

“Let me ask you honestly…” my father said, and the earnestness of his tone grabbed me like the darkness had grabbed Old George and Mosko.  He looked at me for a moment before adding, “Do you think we’ll make it out of this, whatever this is?”

My mind reeled with the implications.  I’d been considering that very thing.  I had no answers and could only offer conjecture, yet I knew my father respected my opinion.  He considered me the most learned member of the family.  I was the only one of us who’d finished high school and had been to college, even going so far as to get a degree in creative writing that I later considered a complete waste of my time.  Nevertheless, Dad respected me for, as he put it, “all my schoolin'” and asked for my best possible opinion.

I decided to offer it to him unvarnished as he had every right to expect.  “I honestly don’t know, but I suspect we won’t.  When I had the dream, Beth told me there was no safe place and yet I still needed to leave.  I didn’t listen and look where we are.  Even if there was no place to go where we could have survived, I trusted that voice.  Maybe I was wrong for doing so, but I did.  She said it was coming and there was no place to hide.  I believed her then and I believe her now.  I think the rhyme after that just cemented the belief in my head.  It said something like ‘Cataclysm is what we give, Darkness now is all there is’ or something to that effect.  I think we’ve seen that come true.”

I paused for a moment and watched that sink into his brain.  He was chewing on it still when I decided to continue.  “My opinion is that this is the end of the world as we know it.  Maybe things’ll go on anyway.  I’ve always believed life tends to find a way out of any fix it’s in.  That said… I’m not so sure there’s much hope for our version of life.  I suspect what’s out there—”  I gestured toward the door at the far end of the hall that led to the screened-in porch.  “—will get in here eventually.  I don’t know if that’s soon or not, but I feel it’s highly likely in either case.”

He mulled over that for the briefest of moments.  My father and I had a great relationship in that we could easily take the worst of news from each other.  We expected complete honesty and always gave complete honesty.  That’s why I felt bad earlier when I lied about the batteries possibly being low when the power went out.  I was crossing lines I’d never considered crossing before, but I felt strongly that it was necessary to consider the impact of the truth when the truth would have made no difference other than to make people feel worse.  I’d betrayed that trust for the first time in my life and felt so guilty about it that I couldn’t do it again.  The thought was so abhorrent that it was considered and rejected in the fraction of a second it took me to start talking.  I could think of no better time to rely on our bond and felt its enforcement was of the utmost importance.  Despite my dire predictions, I knew he appreciated it.

“And Dad,” I continued, “I think Brogan is part of this.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know why.  I just do.”

He immediately nodded and replied, “I do too, son.”

Screams from the living room echoed down the hall and struck us like daggers.  It was Margaret.  I immediately felt the end was upon us.  Her cries reminded me of George’s just before he was pulled into the darkness.  Then they ended as quickly as they began, but they ended in muffled noises that sounded as though she’d been gagged.  That was quite different from what happened to George.

Mom’s urgent calls followed.  “Richard!  Vey!”  I’d never before heard my mother sound like that.  It was the kind of shrieking that overrode all considerations.  No one messed with my mother.  She should never sound like that.  Nothing and no one had the right to bring out from her that horrific sound.

Dad and I turned from the basement door and ran toward the living room.  It was only forty feet away from us and yet felt like miles.  My legs were on automatic pilot as they carried me across that infinite expanse of space.  I could not imagine harm coming to my mother outside of what age would eventually visit upon her.  What I heard in her voice betrayed that assumption and told me clearly that I had no control over her fate.

[Introduction | Part 11 | Part 13]