Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Read online

  Darkness Ascending

  By Brian Stewart

  Copyright 2015 Brian Stewart

  All Rights Reserved

  Authors notes

  And so my battle with speech recognition continues. It’s amazing to me to think how far the technology has advanced in just the eighteen months that it has taken me to finalize Darkness Ascending. Almost every smart phone and tablet now has speech recognition components. In other words, there are millions of devices floating around that are specifically designed to frustrate our lives.

  I remember when Bluetooth headsets first came out. I would often chuckle to myself when I saw a person walk by, apparently crazily babbling to themselves and gesturing at the invisible person or persons that only they could see. I believe I’m not the only one who had those observations and subsequent conclusions.

  Nowadays, most speech recognition is used primarily in the privacy of your home or office. This is probably a good idea. Taking notes on lectures, dictating grocery lists, prioritizing what to pack for a vacation—those sorts of things are really the forte of this technology.

  It is with a complete understanding that I empathize with the few brave souls that have attempted to undertake a major project, such as a book, using speech recognition. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been told I’m more of a storyteller than a writer. I won’t disagree. However, the very definition of speech recognition requires you to enunciate each word in almost a monotone-like pronunciation. In other words, the exact opposite of how you would tell a story to an audience. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible when you’re in the thick of the story with ideas and plotlines flying all around your brain to maintain that monosyllabic tenor. This can create some “interesting” sentence structure when you go back to edit. Early on I decided to jot down a few of the more “what the heck?” translations that came up in the proofreading process. Below is a list of what I said, followed by what the software typed out because that’s what it thought I said.

  As Thompson replied ….. As Tom Singh replied, or, and stomp Singh knee pie dough.

  Michelle ….. Oafish elf. (Not sure what happened here, but that’s what came up.)

  Saw nothing ….. Saul muffins

  Eric hopped ….. Harrick opt

  Max stayed frozen ….. The next eight bra’s on

  Eric softly padded up ….. Eric’s awfully padded what’s up

  Sam and Michelle ….. Salmon Michelle

  The camouflage ….. A camel flushed

  Heading this direction ….. Hitting Mr. Action

  Anybody ….. Etty buddy

  Must have decided ….. Mustard beside bed

  Walter kept his face even ….. Walter cactus taste Stephen

  Poncho liner ….. Punch airliner

  He yawned again ….. He on the gay and

  That simple equation ….. That’s of weekly Asian

  And drew my CZ ….. Andrew mice easy

  Revealed a solitary ….. Rebuild a solid terry

  So he turned to face Estes for ….. So return two face testicle

  I shrugged and passed it towards her ….. I shrugged and pasta torture

  And finally, the one that still makes me chuckle every time I see it…

  Had to shoot that girl ….. Had to shoot batgirl

  Not to be outdone with simply misinterpreting what I say, speech recognition, at least in my experience, also has some glaringly annoying faults. A word that frequently appears in this series is “ghoul.” I have yet to have the software get it right. It usually types something like “the goal,” “go,” “cool,” “goal,” or “roll.” Experience has taught me to keep several words copied and available as a “paste” option. Ghoul is one of them.

  Another hair pulling, teeth clenching, eye rolling word that drives me bonkers is the word “coil” and its derivatives like coiling and coiled. I’ll bet that I have attempted to mold my lips and cheeks into at least 100 different archaic configurations while trying to get the software to print out that dang word. My rate of success is a consistent zero percent.

  And then there are any words that contain the “aw” sound like in the word “jaw.” For some reason they just don’t get picked up very well with speech recognition, and I’ve learned to just grit my teeth and hit the keys instead of engaging in a pronunciation war with the computer when they come up.

  The final one I’ll mention is a word that makes me want to pull my hair out every time it comes up. The word is “clothes.” Think about it. When we use that word in everyday speech, it is pronounced very similar to the word “close,” like in the sentence, “Please close the door when you leave.” And that’s what speech recognition prints each and every time, except when it interprets your word as a system command and tries to force exit the word processing program that you—of course—haven’t saved your last two hours of work on. Ask me how I know. Yeah . . . that. I’ve learned a little trick that works occasionally. If I pronounce the word “clothes” like “clawths,” it will occasionally get it right . . . occasionally.

  Anyhow, enough of the speech recognition lecture—on to the gratitude. Once again, Miss Virginia Barrett has been instrumental in catching my frequent and repetitive grammatical errors. With Darkness Ascending, our system of identifying and correcting mistakes has evolved somewhat, meaning that I probably commit about three percent less of the common blunders that plagued her in Fade to Grey. Unfortunately, the blunders I seem to make in book two are more insidious and harder to find. I don’t envy her job, but she does it well and I am extremely grateful to her. Thank you Virginia!

  Also coming back for round two is the talented Mary Beth French. Her graphic arts ability provided the cover artwork. Thank you MB!

  Ever write a book? Ever do it while holding down a fulltime job? Ever do both of those and try and have a normal family life? If you succeeded, I’m envious of you. For me, it always seems to be about choices. Do I spend that extra twenty-seven minutes sitting on the couch with my wife and talking about our day, or do I hightail it out to the home office and try to get another paragraph finished? For much of the last year, my wonderful spouse has frequently sacrificed “our” time in lieu of giving me the freedom to try and be creative. I can never repay her. But I love her, and I am eternally grateful for her support. She is the reason this project is in your hands.

  Finally, Psalm 136.

  Note number one—as in Fade to Grey, some of the language or speech patterns of certain characters may not follow accepted “rules of punctuation.” My answer—tough cookies. I know people who talk like that. So do you.

  Note number two—self publishing a book on a limited budget is difficult at best. You don't have an army of editors or proofreaders at your beck and call. An enormous amount of effort went into Darkness Ascending, but because of limited resources, you may still run across the occasional typo. Oops. Sorry. With that said, thank you for your understanding, and feel free to email me any blatant errors you find. My email will be in the back of the book, and I'll make sure to add your corrections to future versions.

  Note number three—a dictionary has been provided at the end of the book.

  Note number four—this book contains adult situations and language.

  So many voices-

  So many choices-

  So many times I’ve struggled in vain-

  Must I walk towards the fire to burn away my shadow-

  Or shall I bond with the darkness and embrace all my pain.

  Graffiti found scrawled at a rest stop near Grand Forks, North Dakota

  Table of Contents

  Authors notes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2r />
  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Contact the author

  Dictionary

  Chapter 1

  Darkness Ascending

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. The measured staccato drumming was cold and hard against the crystalline safety glass. Once flawless and free of imperfections, its surface was now spider webbed with a bewildering jigsaw puzzle of fractures and fissures that radiated from the central impact zone. A magnified example of what could happen if you didn’t heed the ‘stay back 100 feet—not responsible for road objects’ sign so often found barely legible yet plastered to the dump gate of heavy trucks. Only the impact on this windshield didn’t come from the exterior. Embedded in the heavily damaged center core of the spider web was a haze of mostly coagulated blood. More than a few strands of hair remained wedged as well, along with innumerable flecks, some microscopic, others definitely larger, of human skin. Eric’s skin.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. The hollow pulsation repeated. His eyes seemed welded shut, either by swelling or dried blood, probably both. There was no pain. No blinding white streaks of agony thundering through his head. No grating of splintered bones that jockeyed for their position in the new order of things. No searing flesh or torn muscles. There was nothing. Tap . . . tap . . . tap. Except that. Whatever had happened hadn’t affected his hearing.

  What had happened? Eric called a temporary truce in the battle he was fighting to open his eyes and tried to recall. Something about a scouting mission to . . . somewhere. Where? Was he alone? No, someone was with him. It was . . . Michelle? Maybe.

  TAP . . . . . TAP . . . . . TAP. The rhythmic pulse intensified and slowed, momentarily scattering the threads of memory he had been grasping for. A brief, sharp odor of gasoline burned in his nostrils and caused an involuntary wince. Something was wrong. His face felt . . . nothing. No, that wasn’t right. His face felt . . . numb, like the time in grade school when he had been pummeled by two sucker punch snowballs that were thrown by junior high school bullies. He hated bullies. They were immature life forms that got their daily nutritional needs met, along with some form of macabre enjoyment, out of tormenting the smaller, younger, or weaker kids at school. True to character, the ammunition employed against him that day wasn’t your typical fresh packed and recently hand molded snowball. He had been pelted with globs of translucent slush scooped from the already compact pile where the plow had thrown it that morning. The ammunition in question often contained bits of gravel and road debris, and would be further compressed and left to freeze solid until it was needed, usually right after school let out. Hard . . . cold . . . frozen. Numb. That was the feeling that mimicked the semi-nothingness he felt.

  Another acrid whiff of gasoline kicked his sense of smell into high gear, and the resulting mental jolt released enough adrenaline to force his eyelids partway open. Iridescent, swirling lights leapt at the opportunity and shot through the gateway, sending ragged bolts of white hot pain roaring into Eric’s head. His fragile systems, already damaged and in shock, mercifully shut down and sent him into blackness.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. He stirred groggily, still trapped momentarily in the thickening ooze between oblivion and perception. Slowly, like a great whale rising from the darken depths of a primal ocean, awareness began to return.

  And with that awareness, a small, dull cherry ember of a growing terror.

  What had happened? It was . . . on the way to the campground? Yes, that was it . . . the campground. Michelle? Yes, she had been with him. She had been driving his truck for some reason. Why? He couldn’t remember. There had been hands reaching for them through the open windows. Grasping, tugging, tearing. The thunder of gunfire and the jarring acceleration and heavy braking as Michelle had sought a way out of the swarm.

  The ember blazed incandescent.

  He recalled with now unwelcome clarity the vivid, red eyes of the ghoul that latched one corded arm onto the steering wheel as the other tried to pull Michelle’s head through the open window. But there was more. Something . . . terrible. His gun. He had lost his . . . no wait, it wasn’t lost, the slide was locked back. He had been out of ammo but still blindly pulling the trigger as Michelle screamed for help. Hungry, rabid snarls accompanied heavy thumps as more and more of the infected piled on, trying to slow the hard-skinned truck enough to get at the meat inside.

  A momentary flash of a child in pajamas seated on the floor in front of a television broke through. His view was directly behind the child, and the supernaturally bright screen flickered the scene into a photo negative. Indistinct, animated stick figures sang and danced in the penumbra of illumination as the child leisurely swayed in time with the commercial jingle. “Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside . . . crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside . . .”

  The ember burst into flames.

  The memory of his truck rocketing blindly across the uneven terrain cascaded in a snapshot series of images—the steering wheel locked on an unchanging course by the ghoul’s vice-like grip. Eric remembered dropping his gun on the floorboard and reaching, scrambling for Michelle’s Glock that was still secured in her holster. He had managed to jerk it free as the accelerating vehicle hit a series of large objects. Rocks, holes, infected; he couldn’t tell. Michelle was thrusting her right shoulder towards him as the wheel-gripping menace seize
d her ponytail with his other hand and yanked. Eric watched the nightmare unfold and replay as Michelle’s head was wrenched sideways. The red-eyed ghoul leaned backwards like a sailboarder counterbalancing a strong wind as Eric fought to bring the gun on target. Crimson eyes locked with his own, and the ghoul’s lips crested in a bloody, knowing smile. Daring.

  “SHOOT,” Michelle had screamed as she thrashed against the beast latched onto her hair.

  The wildly careening truck bounced and slammed blindly over the landscape as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  “SHOOOOOOOT,” Michelle yelled, drawing it out with the effort of resisting.

  With terrible, inhuman strength, the grinning monster began to drag itself through the open window towards Michelle.

  “ERIC!” Her strength finally fading, Michelle’s green eyes briefly met with his and pleaded for deliverance.

  At that moment the truck ricocheted over a large, unyielding object, jerking Eric’s aim down and sideways as the muzzle blast silently exploded. Salty tears welled up and ghosted down his unfeeling face as he relived the terrifying vision. One hundred and fifty-five grains of 40 caliber jacketed hollow point had slammed into Michelle’s rib cage. In slow motion, both her and the ghoul had somehow rotated and stared into his eyes. Michelle’s expression was one of incredible disbelief, disappointment, and fear. The ghoul’s was a horribly accusing “I told you so.”

  And then, with a quick and effortless tug, Michelle was pulled through the open window of the speeding vehicle. Not quite two seconds later, 3500 pounds of metal collided with twenty times that weight of solid, immovable oak. Blackness descended upon Eric again.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap. Slowly, with the vaguely distant memory of the last attempts blinding pain, he creaked his eyelids open to slits. Dull, ocher light unhurriedly crept into his vision—slowly dissolving into a filmy, awkward angled view.