Available Darkness Season 1

were better than nothing.
    He opened the door and…
    …Was again a child, back in the middle of that awful night which had been blotted from his memory, stepping gingerly into the darkened hallway. Downstairs, his father was still screaming at his mother. The shadow man was just ahead of him, at the landing of the stairs. He turned back and in that dissonant voice, warned Caleb to wait.
    And he did.
    Moments later, he heard his father cry out, “What the fuck?”
    The end of “fuck” was severed by a ripping sound followed by a wet thud and a splash which sent chills down Caleb’s spine.
    He’s dead. The monster is dead.
    While a part of him should have been happy that the man who tormented he and his mother would no longer do so, the reality of murder did not bring the relief he’d sought. Panicked tears welled in his eyes as warm piss trickled down Caleb’s leg.
    His mother screamed. At first Caleb assigned the sound to the horror of seeing her husband murdered. Yet the scream held an elevated fear which went far beyond the terror of a frightened witness, sharpened by the acid panic of self preservation.
    “Hello, mother,” the man in shadows said in a voice of boots crunching on top of gravel.
    Then, the sound of ripping flesh and gurgling, followed by silence.
    Caleb waited, fear circling the drain of his throat.
    She’s dead, you killed her!
    The adult part of Caleb was frozen as well. He remembered nothing of this night from his youth. These memories were not the ones he had owned for so long. This wasn’t how his parents had died, yet he knew it wasn’t a dream. This was a truth he’d been hiding from, or … which had been somehow removed from his mind. Entombed memories were no less real for their burial. He urged his dream self to take a step forward, to unravel the rest of the mystery.
    “Mommy!” young Caleb screamed, bolting down the stairs and into the living room.
    He saw the smoldering corpse of his father, flesh still bubbling as his headless body twitched.
    The next two things he noticed in unison.
    The shadow man, now looking slightly more human in form, stood in the center of the living room with his arms outstretched, while his mother, throat slashed and blood soaking through the thin gauze of her night shirt, danced. Her arms were raised, her lifeless head rolling back and forth, barely there and maybe only by a thread of muscle or bone. Her feet hovered inches above the ground. The shadow man moved his arms wildly like a crazed marionette as Caleb’s mother danced some perverse jig.
    The monster laughed.
    Caleb screamed. The shadow man turned to him, surprised, and allowed his mother to collapse to the floor in an inanimate, bloody heap.
    “Forgive me, a son should have one final dance with his mother, yes?” The trailing S, a serpent’s hiss.
    Caleb was confused. He longed to run at the monster, pound him, tear him apart, anything. But fear bolted his ankles to the floor.
    “You don’t remember me, do you Caleb?” the monster said, drifting closer.
    Caleb wanted to turn and run. The adult Caleb also wanted to turn away, tears streaming down his sleeping cheeks. Neither Caleb could do anything but watch the mind movie that had no pause.
    Finally, the child spoke.
    “Why did you kill her?”
    “Because!” the monster yelled, his voice sounding more boyish and human than before, “she left me. You all left me behind. With him. ”
    “She’s not your mother!” Caleb cried out.
    “Ah, what have they done to you, brother? You really don’t remember me, do you? It’s me … Jacob.”
    Just like that, the shape of the shadow man dissipated like spider webs in a tornado, and standing before Caleb was a boy, not much older than he, naked and coated in the freshly spilled blood of Caleb’s parents.
    Caleb was torn between confusion, anger, and a sudden, incredible sadness. None of this was making any sense and his head felt as if it were going to split and spill its contents to add to the gore-strewn floor.
    “She made you forget,” Jacob said, “but I,” and he pointed at his head and spread his lips in a lunatic’s smile, “I NEVER forget!”
    The monster boy stepped forward and Caleb took a step back, shaking.
    “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you two. You’re my brothers.”
    Brothers? Two? Who else is he talking about? Adult Caleb was puzzled, though his mind was too entrenched in the dream to untangle the logic.
    The monster headed to the front