Red Twilight the Weaver chapter 5

Chapter 5:

The Poet's Memories'

Jessica finds her way to her bed in the depths of night, a familiar feeling of motherly gratification offering her a beautiful and restful night. She wiggles her head and curls into a tight ball on her bed nearly putting her head on her knees and her tail twice entwining her body. Jessica sighs a contented sigh and takes a single deep breath in preparation of her slumber before the scrapping of stone to wood perks her ears. Her eyes open sharply as she places here glasses back on her nose. "Good grief, what could that be?"

Jessica sneaks around her hole in search of the noise. She finds her way back to the study by candlelight; Jessica's attention drawn by the flickering eyes of a child crawling over the bookcases.

Cream jumps down yelling. "I found them! I found them! The missing pages!"

In a whispering shout, Jessica commands "keep it down! You'll wake the dead at this hour." She then picks up the girl and looks at the papers in her claws "what do you mean you found the lost pages?"

"The poet story here is the rest of it." Cream squeals happily

"I don't think so…" she looks hard at the pages quickly running her eyes up and down them "or maybe…" Jessica mutes herself.

"Read them! Read them!" Cream hops up and down.

** *

Keith and Angelo were never popular. Everyone said they were strange. Angelo likes cat-ears, he has crafted a fake pair that he wears around most days, Keith is the 'silent Bob' type, he likes long sleeves and winter coats even in the summer. Wail most boys in their classes were playing football Keith, and Angelo were practicing fencing, when most the guys in school were talking about cars, Keith and his life companion never wavered from there scholarly studies. Then sex became the hot topic of the school Keith and Angelo were labeled as queer; the par didn't protest, after all, when you like to dance and wear makeup it's complicated to come up with a good excuse as to why. In truth, the hair dyes, the makeup, and jewels it's all cultural. The par identified themselves with the gypsy tribe called the Gothics, ancient rouge artisans.

At the beginning of the semester, a talent show was held, Keith brought in his viola, Angelo dressed up in a skeleton costume and the two of them performed a druid dance number. Apparently, a number of the alpha males in the school felt uncomfortable with the performance and so took out their frustrations on the violinist. Keith was beaten within an inch of his life after school that day. No one said a word; no one tried to help him. Keith had been hit before but this time was different, he changed that day, didn't feel like talking to anyone.

A week later, Keith was dead, chained to the flagpole outside the school. Keith was cut down and carried away. No one talked to Angelo, no one said they were sorry, no one asked him if he was ok. Angelo didn't expect them to. In respect for his life brothers passage, he wore his skeleton costume again. If anything, Angelo expected closure, an explanation as to why his best friend is dead. Quickly he found he wouldn't get it. There were no police, no investigations.

Keith was just gone. No one even spoke of that day again.

Angelo looked to the tabloids, people don't just die, and it's over. There are funerals, and there is grieving, surely if no one else Keith's family could explain a thing or two. Angelo opens newspaper after newspaper not one seems to contain anything, nothing but variety pages. No deaths no crimes nothing in the whole town everything is perfect it would seem. He goes in search of his friend's family, but it is hopeless, they have left town. Something is wrong in this town.

Katsith bikes to school the way he always has. A strange wind blows; the sheriff is outside speaking with the principle. They talk in hushed tones, Katsith can understand only a tiny fragment of what is being said "…three more…" Katsith understands nonetheless. Keith is back from the dead, and he is punishing those that had hurt him.

A devilish smirk takes to Katsith's face, might this mean that he could do whatever he wanted now? No! That can't be right! Keith was no monster, and neither is he. IF Keith is back, then HE wouldn't be doing something like killing his classmates. IT could only be a Demon PRETENDING to be KETH! But things don't add up still. Today is going to be a bad day, there is only one thing that the school would be thinking, Angelo Katsith IS a WITCH, and THE GOOD PEOPLE are going to CONDEMN him for his SINS!

It's not more than an hour into his day before he proves himself right. Stan, Christopher, and Edger, three members of the varsity squad corner him outside the locker-room "You think

I'm afraid of you, SPOOK!" Edger shoves Katsith furiously.

Angelo is tiny compared to these three, but he seems unshaken. "Half the team is missing, what did you do with them." Stan demands

"One third, Lunchbox. You play baseball. If there were nine men on the field and three of them left that would mean that one-third of the team was MIA, And by the way what makes you think that I have anything to do with this."

Edger smashes him into the wall again. "You're a witch! everyone knows it."

"I'm a Wikka, but I don't expect you to know the differences Caveman. Just between you and me, Edger, its September right? I've got a five spot that thinks by autumn harvest I'm going to be the only one of us still alive. You want to take the over or the under on that bet?"

Edger drives his knee into Katsith groin then takes him by the coat and throws him to the ground "how about I just hold on to that five for you and well see what happens? Thanks for the loan." Katsith's classmates spend some time stomping on the punker just for the hell of it then they pick his pocket. Angelo laughs it off; he knows he is right.

The darkness spreads in the following days. It's just as Katsith suspected, more and more students turn up missing, not dead, just gone. Katsith takes to studying the darkness relentlessly trying to find a way to control it. Stan comes flying into the library late into the day looking for Katsith.

Stan grabs Angelo pulling Angelo out of the chair he was reading in. "Spook, you got'a help me!"

"You know we have been going to school together for eight years, and you don't even know my real name."

"Damn it, help me!"

"I could let the darkness eat you" Katsith is playing around, Katsith is harmless, he has never harmed anyone let alone stood by to watch another get hurt. But it is fun to see how people react to the threat.

What comes next? The would-be cat-boy would never have suspected. The darkness has always come in the dead of night, never to be seen in its manifestation. Solidified night rolls into the library like liquid fire. Books fly off shelves, tables and counters burst into flames, light is drowned-out. Stan shacks Katsith "WHAT are WE going to DO!"

Quietly Katsith considers and then whispers with his tormenter "we are going to run." the two young men make their way to the door. The door has come to life and is laughing at them. Katsith grabs a chair and smashes his way through.

The two head into the halls of the school. It is silent in an unheard-of fashion; only their footsteps echo in the hallways. "What the hell is that thing that's after us?" Stan shouts.

"A class four phantasmal apparition."

"What?" Stan asks as there running.

"It's negatively charged psychokinetic energy, lots of it."

"What can we do?"

"Three things," Katsith explains as he bounces off a wall turning the corner. the darkness is reaching for their feet.

"one; we find a ten-pound worth of un-iodized-salt, sodium-dioxide, sodium-chloride, you know Rokk salt, something clean." the two of them start hurdling tables in the lunchroom.

"two; chlorinated water, we need to sit in the middle of the swimming pool till it losses interest in us." Katsith explains

"How long would that take?" Stan asks, short of breath.

"Let's just say we might be late to graduation." Katsith bellow through the gymnasium doors "three, we could try a human sacrifice."

"I don't think I like where this is going. How do you know about this shit?"

"You and the swim-girls go to orgies, I hang out at bookstores." gym equipment comes to life and seems to aid the mass of darkness. Katsith pushes Stan into the pool room. The darkness stops at the door. The two wade into the water. The air crackles, the pair stand quivering in the water overnight speaking nearly a word.

Slowly they make their way out of the water and back to the locker rooms as sunlight begin to fill the pool. "Angelo," Stan addresses his partner. Katsith looks pleased to hear someone calling him by his name "Thank you, looks like we survived the night." Stan spoke too soon; lockers start breaking open the darkness snatches up Stan and drags him into a locker then welds itself shut. Stan is taken away from this world entirely, gone with the others, not killed, erased.

It looks like again Katsith is alone in the world. He arms himself with his cat-ears and skeleton costume a slight grin on his lips. Tomorrow night he will go in search of more allies, other which may be able to stand in the dark. Maybe Thomas Phear the new art and culture teacher.

***

"Have you ever had the dream where you're at home, frantically searching for something? I have. In fact, I've had it a lot lately. I'm ready for a new life. Miles from the big cities I've known all my life. I've given up on drugs, no not with twelve stepping, not with the grace of god, not with the love of 'a good women,' cold turkey by myself; I put down the pipe and stopped smoking. That is that. I bought A house on the lake for almost nothing. When I ask for a quote he (the relater) practically handed me the keys without signing the sales resets, he was overjoyed to get it off his hands.

I just made my first payment on my new house. It's a lakeside Victorian style house likely built around 19'hundered. In a small town that looks like it belongs in the thirties. The high school and the middle school share a parking lot (not that I've seen a car aside from my own and the sheriffs since I got here), and only one doctor that treats everyone, one gRoker, one bar, and three restraints all privately owned make up the rest of the entertainment, everyone knows ever one. I'm an outsider.

The area is called the northwest wasteland by the natives. Standing on the parapet to the east, there is a sawmill, it looks overgrown, whenever it was abandoned it was clearly done so unexpectedly. There is a rusted old truck parked out front and a dilapidated crane off to one side of it, across the lake there is a coal mine that looks to have been boarded-up for years, beyond that there is an endless meadow and a sea of trees. To the west, there is the town, one infinite road and only a hand full of establishments.

Once I was a school teacher at an intermediate university, my experts' art, and modern culture. With a little luck on my side, I'll be doing the same thing hear starting in the fall. until then, it will be just me here, working day and night doing art as a hobby.

I wake in my dreams, that is the way it always starts, the clock is spinning backward, that is how I'm aware that I'm dreaming, I feel like something is missing. Where is my wife? I think sometimes. But then reality intrudes on fantasy reminding me that I've never been married. Don't I have a dog? But then I remember that my dog has been gone for some time. Something is missing I just know it and I feel panic, I need the thing that I lost. Without is something bad might happen.

I go to the kitchen and start frisking cupboards. It's not there!? I don't know what it is but I know that it's not where I'm looking. I go to my room. It's not there either. The sky grows dark, the wind howls so loudly that the windows begin to splinter, I yell at myself 'Tomas, get up. Tomas Phear wake up'

I snap awake, it's still the middle of the night, more often than not, only ten to twenty minutes after lying down. My lungs burn, my heart pounds, my eyes water, it feels almost like the first 'hit' after lighting up. I can't remember why I liked this in the first place.

The dream seldom ends there. I know I won't be sleeping again, so I make my way to the roof where I have my tripod and acrylics set out and waiting already. I face the lake and feverishly paint through the night. I try to paint with the warm pallets I love so much from years of schooling. But I find that my brush keeps moving to the cooler colors, blues, grays, black.

Every skyline I paint from here is a nighttime sky.

Shifting through a summer's worth of work, it is clear when the dreams started. The themes of my art have changed. All my portraits look cold and shadowy; all my landscapes are covered by an unending night. I've tried to paint during daytime hours but when I did my dawning sky transformed into a burning sky. I've tried to paint nature but always hidden in the shadows are faces I can't remember placing therein.

I feel secluded. I've invited my neighbors over a dozen times and tried to talk about local history, and the perverse owners. No one wants to talk to me. Everyone clams up as soon as I ask about the town. I even went to the school asking the Dean; surely an academic like myself wouldn't be frightened by the 'evil eye'. He whispered briefly of the death of one of his student last fall but wouldn't say another word thereafter.

The following night I notice a High school aged boy hanging around my house after dark. I don't think much of him at first. He looks untraditional, dark hair dark cloths, pail, and were's lots of jewelry and makeup, at my old school there were lots of kids like him.

I pace around thinking hard about all I've seen and heard over the summer. There is something terrible in this town, and it wants to be found. All the evidence point in that direction, If I ever want to sleep again I need to find out what people aren't talking about.

First; I look to the artwork I've been doing, maybe there is a clue there?, Eyes hidden in trees, faces masked with shadows, but then something far more tantalizing comes to view. I did a painting of the coal mine, wherein the coal mine is open… what could that mean?

I call the sheriff in the morning. I tell her "I want to go down to the coal mine. " She asks me "why?",

I tell her "I think there is something important down there."

She seems aggravated "the coal mine has been sealed for 30 years."

"I understand but…"

She won't let me finish "Phear, we do thing here with a purpose, and doing them as such have bought use a decade of peace." I need to know "What does that mean?"

"Every town has a demon or two. We just found a way to keep ours quiet." Silences that would be this towns poison.

Maybe there are demons. That being the case I feel inclined to go looking for them, and perhaps I'm not alone in that notion. The boy that I saw outside, his name is Angelo Katsith. The dead student that the Dean spoke of was his best friend, but it would seem that now he is the only one that remembers him. I think maybe I can help him find out why.

Angelo points out some more than disturbing aspects of the town to me when we meet.

He is willing to talk, and I'm glad to have the company at long last. He directs me to the library.

It's the middle of the night; we brake in.

He starts pulling newspapers for me

"Keith was my best friend; he was found dead, chained to the flagpole. No one sad a word about it, Look through the papers. Apparently, no one had died in this town since 1990. In fact, there is no record of any crime in this 'hole.' But I'll tell you. It's all a lie. Keith was the first; his death triggered a chain reaction. Seven of my classmate died this week. Keith parents are missing, the only thing in their apartment is a spool of tape."

The story didn't make sense till I started to consider the possibility of a conspiracy or something more sinister yet. Evil had consumed the whole town and we might be the last untouched souls. "What do we do Angelo?"

"We have to stand against the dark. We have to lay the dead to rest, and we need to restore the lost balance to this place. Find the truth, the evil and dispel it."

Its insanity, me? Fight the darkness. I'm an artist, not a fighter. But this kid, he needs me. I'm a teacher; the world is getting stranger by the minute, I don't like where this is going. There is nothing left to do. I need to fallow the kid no matter what…