Chapter 4: The True Enemy

As the seemingly endless night carried on, Sheila tossed and turned in her sleeping bag in the basement of Oswald’s hideout, St. Smithson Catholic Church; listening to the chorus of howls from the distant Dark Ones, hunting for their prey in their hour of feeding. As she dozed in and out of consciousness, she kept having the strangest dreams; she was floating in the middle of darkness, the air cold and crisp.


A light suddenly revealed itself through a barred window, a white, bright light that Sheila found to be the moon. The moonlight brightened the room enough for her to find herself in a cold, gray room. The room had nothing but a barred window, with the moon peeking in, and a pair of cheap old bunk beds stacked on top of one another with only a pillow and a mattress.


Sheila looked around the room to find that it was exactly what she thought it was; a prison. She was startled when she saw a young, beautiful woman staring intently out the window, her eyes deep and depressing. Sheila couldn’t study the woman’s features very closely due to the lack of light, but she saw that the woman was wearing a rugged, torn black dress, her skin a perfect olive, which was covered in dirt and filthy. Her hair was long, greasy, and brown, like Sheila’s; only it seemed that she hadn’t washed hers in ages. Her eyes were big and brown, also like Sheila’s, which stared out at the moonlight with a deep sadness. The sadness passed on to Sheila, making her heart heavy. The woman turned and looked at Sheila, her deep eyes staring into hers,

“Why are you still here?” the woman asked, her voice soft and gentle. Sheila couldn’t speak; she’d seen this woman before; somewhere, somehow, she knew her. “They haven’t infected you yet?” she asked again. Sheila snapped herself out of her shock,

“Who hasn’t infected me?” Sheila asked. Looking back on it, she thought it was a foolish thing to say, because obviously she’d been talking about the Dark Ones.


“No, it is too late for me now. Go. Leave me. Leave this place and never return!” the woman commanded.


“Wait!” Sheila cried. “Who are you?” The woman seemed to ignore Sheila and spoke anyway,


“Leave! Now! Before they find you!” she cried. Suddenly she heard voices and footsteps from down the hall of the dark dungeon, voices and footsteps which were getting louder as they got closer to the cell. She then saw shadows of people walking stretch across the wall in front of her. Sheila looked back to woman, who was staring at her with her big sad eyes,


“We’re too late! Farewell, friend…” the woman said vividly. Sheila shut her eyes as the people finally approached her cell.


Sheila woke with a start, she was being shaken violently. As her eyes shot open, she could see Oswald was shaking her violently, the smell of ash was in the air,


“Sheila!’ Oswald screamed. Sheila darted her head around in panic as she could hear the roar of flames coming from the church above the attic they were in. She was still slightly dazed from the dream she had had,


“What’s happening?” Sheila asked, stunned and half awake. The expression on Oswald’s face was of utter terror and panic,


“We must leave at once! They are attacking!” he shouted. Sheila was suddenly snapped out of her daze,


“Who’s attacking?” Sheila asked, but it was no use; Oswald wasn’t listening,


“Let’s go!” he said, and he hauled Sheila up the stairs into the church. The scene upstairs was a horrific sight. The entire church, inside and out, was completely enclosed by flames. The stained glass windows that once showed holy scenes were completely smashed into; the roaring of Dark Ones was coming from outside.


“Come on!” Oswald said, running for the exit. Sheila stayed behind,


“Wait! We can’t just abandon the church, we can fight them off!” she said heroically, searching around for a machine gun. Oswald stuck to his cause,

“Sheila! We must leave! NOW!” he commanded. Sheila didn’t feel like arguing, so she reluctantly followed Oswald out of the church. When they were outside they could see Dark Ones had completely surrounded the church, trying to crawl through the windows. There were hordes of them, all swarming to destroy the church. Oswald dragged Sheila along as they got ran uphill away from the church,


“Why are we running?!” Sheila huffed as they ran up the hill,

“Too dangerous to fight!” Oswald wheezed back. When they finally reached the top of the hill, they looked back down at the burning church in a great deal of sadness as the Dark Ones slowly but gradually destroyed the church.

“How could those monsters live with themselves?!” Sheila cried in rage, “Destroying a church is a new low, even for those Dark Ones!”

“It wasn’t them,” Oswald said resentfully. Sheila looked over at Oswald, his expression dark,

“What?” she asked in awe. Oswald gazed at Sheila, his voice vivid,

“It wasn’t the Dark Ones who did this. Its people far more evil than that,” he hesitated to say more, but Sheila pushed him on,

“What do you mean it wasn’t the Dark Ones? They’re down their right now attacking the church, look…” but Oswald interrupted her,

“Come on, we can’t stay around here all night! We have to find shelter before they find us!” and Oswald pulled Sheila along, and the two of them ran up over the hill, away from the church, making their way towards New York in search of a new place to call home. Sheila was confused, wondering why Oswald was afraid to say who they were under attack by. But she knew one thing was true: whoever these people were, they held a much larger threat than the Dark Ones.
-x-

Darkness was the first thing that met Jonathon when he woke from his deep slumber, feeling himself strapped down in a chair. He tried moving but it was no use, he was completely stuck in the chair he was sitting in. He began to panic,

“Where am I?” Jonathon called out into the darkness around him. Suddenly, blinding lights everywhere blazed to life, forcing Jonathon to shut his eyes tight in order to avoid becoming blind. Finally, when the lights dimmed slightly Jonathon opened his eyes to find himself in a strange, cell-like room. The lights were still strong coming from an area above him, an observation room which sat two dark figures. The room had a window which looked out into the room Jonathon was in, and had lights so bright it was hard for him to look at it.

“Welcome, Jonathon,” one of the figures from the observation room said in a deep, distorted voice over an intercom. Jonathon was scared and confused,

“Where am I? Who are you?!” he cried. The second figure from the observation room spoke up, his voice also deep and distorted,

“That doesn’t matter now; what matters is that you’re here and you do as we say,” the second figure said. Jonathon snorted,

“Yeah, like I’m going to obey you!” he said sarcastically. The two figures were silent, and for a moment Jonathon thought he had them; until a sudden shock of electricity rushed through him. Jonathon screamed in pain,

“What was that for?!” he shouted.

“Now are you ready to listen to us?” The first figure asked rather calmly.

“Yeah, sure, whatever!” Jonathon cried angrily.

“Good,” the first figure said, “now as you know, you’re here in our possession for a very special reason.” Jonathon sighed and rolled his eyes,

“And what is that reason?” he asked. The second figure spoke up again,

“We have this…drug; you may call it that needs testing. We’ve heard about you’re encounter a while back with a Dark One, correct?”

“Never talk about that!” Jonathon shouted angrily in a warning tone. He suddenly was shocked again, only this time even more painful than the last. Jonathon shrieked in agony.

“Is that correct?!” the second figure shouted.

“Yes! Yes, okay?! Yes! I got into a fight with a Dark One while protecting my family!” Jonathon screamed.

“Good,” the first figure said darkly, “that means you’re DNA is exposed to their blood…” Just then, a man dressed in a bomb squad suit came out of a door from the observation room, holding a long, painful looking needle with green liquid. The man began to walk towards Jonathon. Jonathon’s heart began to pound,

“Wait…what are you doing with that?!” he asked, panicky. The second figure laughed a deep distorted chuckle,

“Just a little experiment,” he said evilly, “just hold still and everything will be fine…” the first figure chimed in,

“Yes, no worries! It won’t hurt a bit…” the man in the bomb squad suit finally reached Jonathon, readying his needle. “It’s going to hurt a lot…” the two figures in the observation room laughed together, merging together to form a dark, twisted guffaw. Jonathon closed his eyes and awaited the painful needle.

“Whoever these people are…” Jonathon thought, “They’re the definition of evil…”