Available Darkness Season 1

typically associated with the legends. There again, that trivia… or experience which remained in his memory, though his name was a mystery.
    He thought about how he’d sucked the lives from Randy and Stacy, and his subsequent flight into the sky. None of it made sense. Vampire seemed somewhat incorrect, but not altogether wrong.
    Whatever he was, he didn’t think he was human — not all of him anyway.
    He entered the bathroom — no windows. Bad, if he needed to make a quick exit with the girl, but perhaps a good place to go if the sunlight managed to seep through the curtains.
    He stepped from the bathroom and noticed that Abigail’s eyes were already closed as she lay on top of the comforter.
    He longed for sleep but his racing mind wasn’t in the mood to comply. There were too many questions and uncertainties. He just murdered two people and took off with a child. Certainly, someone would come looking for them, and sooner rather than later.
    He was also eager to unravel the enigma of his tangled identity, and to do that, he needed to rest, to clear his mind, and try to remember something of his life.
    He lay on the other bed, fully dressed in the oversized dead man’s clothes he’d taken, and closed his eyes.
    “Do you believe in God?” the girl asked.
    He looked over at her. Her eyelids were still closed, but she wasn’t yet ready to sleep either, it seemed.
    “What?” He wondered if he heard the question correctly.
    “Do you believe in God?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think I do. But, I don’t know anything before a few hours ago.”
    When the girl failed to ask what he meant, it occurred to him for the first time that she hadn’t raised a single question about his past, or lack of, though he had mentioned his missing memory at least twice. He considered asking her why, but she opened her mouth before he could open his.
    “I don’t think there’s a God. I mean, if there was, why would he allow my parents to die? Or send me to an uncle who sold me to those … people ,” she said this last word only after a pause, “I don’t believe God would allow such things.”
    They sat in silence for a while as his mind flashed on the memories he witnessed during their brief embrace. She’d been through sheer hell in her short life. Even if he believed, how the hell could he argue the existence of God with a child who’d gone through what she did?
    He wasn’t sure what to say.
    “They were religious, you know?” she said after a long silence.
    “Who,” he asked. “Randy and Stacy?”
    “Yeah, he used to force me to read The Bible every morning. Said I was infected by the devil because I made him lust after me. It was my fault. I wasn’t godly enough.”
    Again, the man didn’t know what to say. He looked over at the girl. Her eyes were still closed, though he could see her cheeks were wet with tears. She also seemed to be chewing the inside of her cheek nervously.
    Finally, the man found words.
    “You know he was full of shit, right?”
    The girl laughed, just slightly, and wiped at her nose. For the second time this morning he found himself wanting to hug her tightly.
    “Yeah,” she said, “besides, if I were infected by the devil, I would have killed him a long time ago.”
    Further silence stretched between them as the din of the TV rambled on.
    She then said, “But you took care of that for me. You, the angel who doesn’t believe in God.”
    He let out a dry laugh, and the sound bounced an alien echo against the walls of the dark motel room. Their laughter mingled for a moment, and he discovered that he liked the sound of her giggle — raspy, yet pleasant. Exactly like a child’s laugh should be.
    “I’m not a real angel, you know?”
    “I know,” she said, “I saw.”
    “That I don’t have wings?” he asked.
    “No, when we touched. I saw in your head.”
    The man shot up from the mattress as though it carried a current. Abigail flinched as her eyes flicked open, still wet with tears.
    She had seen inside his mind, just as he had seen inside hers!
    What did she see?
    Oh God, maybe she can help me remember!
    He did his best to control his mounting excitement. He didn’t want to scare her. He grabbed the edge of his mattress tight; a silent gesture promising he wouldn’t leap from the bed. She relaxed and then sat up.
    Their eyes met.
    “What did you see?” he asked.
    “I couldn’t make it all out,” she said, “but you were afraid of something. Very