Brian Keene - Darkness on the Edge of Town

In the beginning

Thats how stories always start, right? In the beginning? I guess mine should start that way, too.

In the beginning was the word. I know this because the Bible tells me so. The Bible tells me a lot of things. It says that Jesus loves me, and that you shouldnt suffer a witch to live, and in the beginning was the word.

Words have power. So do names.

It might sound like Im rambling, but this is important stuff, so remember it. Names. Words. Witches. Ill come back to all of this later, if theres time. Who knows? It just might save your life. I wouldnt have believed that a month ago, but I do now. Things have changed.

My name is Robbie Higgins. There. Now you have power over me. Its Rob or Robbie to my friends. Robert to the cops or my teachers or anyone else who has ever hassled me.

Anyway, in the beginning was the word, and it existed alone in the darkness. The Bible tells us that, tootells us about the darkness. And this wasnt just regular darkness either. No, sir. This was the complete and total absence of lighta darkness so deep and dense that it would have made your eyes hurt. A heavy darkness. Thick. At least, thats how I imagine it was. I mean, I can look out my window for inspiration and see the darkness pretty fucking clearly. I cant see much of anything else, but I can see the darkness.

According to the Bible, heres how it all went down. Youve got the word and the darkness and not much else. The two of them are just sort of hanging out together. The word and the darkness, chilling together in the void. And then the word says, Let there be Light, and there was. And things continued just fine after that, for the most part.

Then, millennia later, some asshole comes along and fucks it all up. Someone else says another word, maybe a bad word or a different word, maybe, Let there be Darkness again, and in doing so, effectively reverses the entire act of Creationerasing the light. No, not just erasing it. Obliterating it. The light is fucking gone, man. Light doesnt exist anymore.

And who knows? Maybe we dont either.

Christy says that were all dead. Thats her theory anyway. She says it explains everythingwhy the phones dont work, why theres no electricity, no contact with the outside world, no television or radio signals, why we cant see anything out there beyond the darkness and, most importantly, why nobody new has come into town since it all began, and why none of the people who went out into the darkness have returned. Christy says that were all dead and this is limbo. Purgatory. We cant move on to Heaven or Hell, because were trapped here. Stranded. According to Christy, this is why ghosts always hang around the place where they diedbecause the darkness prevents them from leaving.

The problem is, Christy does a lot of drugsor did, up until she ran out of themso her conclusions are kind of suspect. Now, dont get me wrong. She wasnt into the hard stuff. She never did heroin or meth or anything like that. She just loved smoking weed and enjoyed the occasional line of coke or a tab of Ecstasy. So did I, truth be told. In any case, my point is this. Scientific method is not Christys strong suit. But I love her anywayand not just because shes got a great set of tits. Before the darkness, she made me smile every day. She made me happy. For guys like me, thats rarer than you might think.

Christys wrong. Were not dead. I know this because dead people dont die. And every single person who has left town since the darkness descended, every single one of us who ventured out into that black space, has ended up dead. You cant die if youre already dead. So, that means they werent dead and they werent ghosts. They didnt die or become a ghost until after they left town.

Of course, Christy disagrees with me. She says Im just speculating. Well, fuck that noise. I know, man.

I know.

Sure, I didnt see them die. Not personally. I mean, you cant see anything beyond the barrier. But I heard them. Heard them die. I heard their screams.

And the other sounds. The sounds the darkness makes.

Sometimes it whispers. If you stand too close to it, right there on the edge where the candlelight is swallowed by shadow, the darkness talks to you in a voice not its owna voice youve probably heard before. A lover. A parent. A friend.

Ghosts.

But the darkness does a lot more than just talk. If chattering was all it did, we could just put cotton in our ears and be done with it.

The darkness bites. The darkness has teethsharp, obsidian fangs that you cant see. But theyre there, just the same. The darkness has teeth, and its waiting to chew us up until theres nothing left. The darkness kills us if we venture out into it, and if it can do that, then we aint fucking dead.

Therefore, the darkness is alive, and so are we.

We dont try to leave town anymore. Nobody does. But staying here has become a problem, too, because this town has gotten teeth of its own. The darkness is getting inside us now, and the results arent pretty.

We have a planme, Christy, and Russ. Im a little apprehensive about it, because the last time I came up with a plan, a lot of people ended up dead as a result of it, and I became sort of a pariah afterward. That was early on in the siege. Ive avoided trying to be a leader since then. But the three of us came up with this new idea today. Its not necessarily a good plan, and it probably wont work, but our options are pretty fucking limited at this point. We came up with the plan after what happened with poor Dez. That was the last strawthe final indication that things will not be returning to normal. Game fucking over, man.

Anyway, well be leaving soon, but before we do, I figured maybe I should leave some kind of record. An accounting, just in case. So Im writing it all down in this notebook, and Ill leave it here before we take off. I guess I should tell you about everything that led to this. Tell the entire story from the beginning.

Names. Words. Witches.

Darkness.

In the beginning