Available Darkness Season 1

kicked, hit, and tore at him. At some point, the pain would be too much to bear, and he would either lose the battle and be torn apart by or burned alive when the blanket was pulled fully away — or perhaps both.
    No, no, no, no, this can’t be happening.
    Sirens wailed closer, blurting and buzzing, followed by a man’s voice booming through an intercom punctuating the arrival of the authorities, “Back away.”
    The mob continued the torrent, raining blow after blow while John grappled with wavering consciousness while clinging to the blanket.
    The sound of splitting cotton magnified with anger in John’s ears as the pillowcase surrendered to the militia of mauling hands. John flinched as the final ribbon of his cotton armor was ripped from his face, and the blanket immediately followed as the crowd roared in victory.
    He was prepared for an immediate passing into whatever Hades was waiting.
    He was met instead with twilight and cool wind that caressed the sides of his bloody, charred cheeks like a salve against his angered flesh.
    In that instant, John’s world had tipped into new possibility.
    The sun was gone.
    Darkness had reclaimed the sky and awakened something within him. Something with the power to render rage and an unholy thirst into power. Time had seemed to again pause to a crawl only for him — giving him a moment to inhale his surroundings.
    Dozens surrounded him. But the most immediate threat was looming above him, a young man poised to deliver a lethal kick into John’s face. In that suspended moment, the man’s eyes went from dark with feral rage to wide and white with fear.
    John growled as reality moved forward like a snapping rubber band, and he caught the man’s boot, wrenched his leg sideways until it snapped, and sent the punk to the ground in a single sweep.
    Time was moving at normal speed again as John rose to his feet.
    John turned in a slow circle, sweat pouring from one side of his face while blood dripped from the other, eying the encroaching crowd. They cautiously retreated almost in unison like a pack of gazelles who had happened upon a feasting lion. A collective instinct spoke a whisper of inherent truth — Death is here.
    John lunged at his attacker, his fingers closing so hard around the man’s throat that they almost went straight through. Their skin fused together as John drank deep from the man’s life force.
    John lowered his chin as he felt his eyes roll to the back of his head, feeling the energy, and the man’s memories, flow through his body. Oddly, he’d not seen any of the man’s memories as he had with his first two victims. He’d been hungry, and the feeding was hitting the spot like nothing he’d ever eaten. His skull bobbed back and forth in a half drunken nod as his skin rippled with some unseen internal climax. The fibers of his body were alive and moving, his flesh mending like death in reverse.
    Oh God yes.
    Screams, as witnesses scattered from the feasting. Some started to run. Others, like animals seized by headlights, could do nothing.
    Holding the withering corpse casually in his palm, John turned sharply, his eyes locking onto those of another lamb in the crowd. Standing 10 feet away — an older man holding a tire iron, which John was sure had been used to hit him.
    “You!” John uncurled a finger at the man, then leaped onto his body and stole another life.
    The second time was different, energy flooding from the man, like blood from a sudden cut — so fresh it still wore a tease of blue. John saw a glimpse of himself attacking the man, then flashed on a memory of the man eating lunch — pizza. Some dark part of John laughed out loud at the befitting vision as he feasted on the fallen man.
    Thunder tore through the riot — a gunshot.
    John snapped out of his feeding, glanced up and saw a sheriff’s deputy, 10 feet away, aiming a shotgun at him. The first bullet was a stray, but John was certain Lady Luck wouldn’t grant him a second grace. He tossed the dead burning man at the cop, then sprinted towards the grocery store parking lot.
    Another gunshot.
    A car window in front of John erupted in chunked pieces of safety glass.
    “Stop!” the cop shouted.
    John didn’t.
    He raced ahead, wrestling his senses for a second of calm, just long enough to carve himself an escape.
    The cop kept pace 10 yards back, then stopped to take another shot. Death whizzed by his ears and smashed into another car window.
    Ahead, John spotted a woman