The Dark Place (#FrightFest2016 Gold Winner)

The Dark Place - Chapter Fifty-Two (Part One)

1

Tamicka looked down at herself cradled in the arms of the young woman who had tried so hard to save her. She still felt the burning pain in her stomach where the long bade had entered, the taste and smell of blood and bile and the close, comforting warmth of the woman's body as she slowly rocked her, soothing her into some long sleep. The sensations remained with her even though the body was no longer a part of her.

"It's okay sweetheart, I'm here." Cass's voice calmed her, but soon it faded off into the distance as the scene started to evaporate before her.

She felt her father close by, his familiar scent surrounded her. She wished that she could see him just one last time but the images of the living world had totally diminished from her view, replaced with a grey fog.

"I'm coming Tami! Daddy's coming!" Her father's voice sounded as if he was under water and so distant. She wanted to stay a little longer, just to have a few moments more with him, but her grey world fast became darker until there was nothing but a thick, cold cloak of black.

The sound of her father's sobs was replaced with a silence so intense, it left her empty but for a tiny ball of fear which rested in the place where the pit of her stomach used to be. The fear grew as she descended deeper into the darkness. If she was on the pathway to heaven it was not how she had expected it to be.

Just when she had thought the black ink which surrounded her could grow no heavier everything turned twice as dark and her sense of dread multiplied tenfold. Was she being returned to the dark place, and if so, were there even worse levels for her to fall into?

Something menacing approached, she could feel it in the darkness through which she fell and climbed. Soon it would be upon her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Tamicka tried to regain some kind of control as she had done when she had been suspended in the dark place before but there was nothing, only falling, darkness and the overwhelming terror.

"You silly little creature!" The voice came from within her. She recognised it straight away. She was there again with the thing which had hoped she had beaten. You didn't think that you would get away from me that easily did you?"

In some strange way there was a small part of Tamicka that was relieved to hear the voice again. Maybe it was just the fact that the voice, no matter how scary it was, broke that deafening silence. She tried to form a reply, some sort of response, but nothing came.

"The answer to your question is no!"

Tamicka did not understand. She couldn't even formulate a question, much less ask one.

"You want to know if this is what death is like and I'm telling you that the answer is no!"

She couldn't quite understand. Somehow, without even being able to murmur a single letter, Tamicka had managed to communicate with the presence.

"Wrong again fool!" boomed the voice. "The body is not yet dead so your ridiculous plan has come to nothing."

There was something deep inside Tamicka that she hadn't noticed before, a tiny microscopic voice that she was not in control of. It seemed to be communicating with the presence on her behalf, almost like some sort of autopilot application. She strained to hear the new voice but it was too faint.

"On the cusp of death, just about held together by a thread but alive none-the-less," came the answer to the unheard question. "I'll take great pleasure in making you pay for almost stealing this body from me!"

Tamicka strained a little harder to hear the second voice. It seemed to be getting closer, more audible, but it was still submerged in a mist of static, almost as if it was trying to disguise its self.