Storm of the End: Book One

Chapter XX.IV: Cracks

Yet again I was in the cathedral, right where I had woken up last time.

"Did you not hear me?" the voice boomed with a tone that just barely concealed total fury, "Stand."

I tried to stand, but felt an invisible force weighing on my shoulders, pushing me down.

"Stand!" the voice shouted, vibrating right through me, causing my limbs to convulse in terror. An icy hand clutched the top of my head. Forcefully and yet gently, I was lifted off of the ground. My vision cleared and I stared directly into two pitch black holes, two paths into the ever expanding depths of the bottomless abyss.

I jumped up out of the bed, the sound of loud screaming echoing around me. I thought it was my own scream that I was hearing, but as I was wildly looking around, catching sight of Jared staring up the stairs, I realized that it actually wasn't coming from me.

A man was violently screaming outside, screaming so loudly that it hurt my own throat imagining how hard he was screaming.

Jared noticed I was awake, "I was keeping watch... I'm going to go see what the hell that is. You coming?"

I nodded, sheepishly. If someone was screaming like that, they obviously had to be in danger. I thought back to the man that had been killed by the eye-thing; I wouldn't let this end the same way.

If someone was in danger, we had to try to help them.

I grabbed my knife. Though without a gun...

The screaming increased in volume and violence, it sounded like the man was literally breaking his vocal cords he was screaming so wildly. Sarah and Aaron stirred awake, "Stay down here!" I said, "Me and Jared are going to see what's going on. If it's too dangerous, we'll come back."

Jared and I moved the chairs blocking the door, then flung it open and stepped upstairs. We quickly crept towards the window closest to the noise.

"...Do you see anything?" Jared asked.

The screaming somehow became even more exaggerated.

"No..." There was nothing outside the window, at least from what I could see.

"It sounds like it's coming from... above us?" Jared rushed out of the house, and I scrambled after him with my knife at the ready, the rain wetting the handle.

Wait... now that I really heard it clearly, the screaming was more like shouting. Like the man was shouting in anger, except... there wasn't a hint of rage in the tone of his voice.

Jared was staring up at the sky above the house.

"What's wrong? What is it?" I said as I came up next to him.

He pointed with his knife. My eyes widened.

There in the sky... was a trail of footprints. They were footprints from human feet, and yet they were branded directly into the air, about thirty feet above us. Each footprint blazed with a burst of flame before slowly smouldering away and disappearing in the rain as it put it out. More footprints appeared at the end of the trail, as if something was walking on thin air in the sky.

And yet... there was nothing there. Something invisible was creating those footprints and... that's where the shouting was coming from. It took on an entirely new level of violence that I didn't think was possible, filling me with sickening feeling of dread as it changed into an almost maliciously mocking tone with its wordless shouting. The footprints increased in speed as the thing sprinted into the distance across the air.

Jared and I stood there speechless for a moment, the rain coming down on our shocked faces, then we turned back to face the house.

"I just don't even know anymore man... I just don't even know..." Jared muttered as he was about to open the door again.

"Hey!" I said, pointing to my right, "Who's there?!"

Jared turned to face what I was pointing at, and instinctually readied his knife when he saw what I had seen, "What are you doing?! Come out from there!"

There was someone behind the fence on the right side. I shined the flashlight on them. All I could see was their arm, which was holding... a video camera?

"What the hell are you doing?" Jared shouted to them, "Come out!"

There was no response.

They didn't even move.

"We don't want to hurt you... we're just wondering why you're..." the lens zoomed, "Why you're... filming us...? What were you doing outside the house, anyway?"

Maybe they were trying to record what they were experiencing in this storm, so they could have some actual evidence that everything they saw wasn't just some crazy nightmare. That would make sense. They must have heard the shouting, came to see what it was and then hid when they saw us. We had knives out, so I didn't blame them for being scared...

No response came.

Jared stomped his foot, "Listen, I don't know what the hell you're doing... but you better say something or come the fuck out from there or I'm going to come over there!"

"Jared!"

The hand disappeared behind the fence, but the camera stayed focused on us.

"Alright, that's the last straw..." Jared started walking towards the fence, but the person suddenly stood up. His torso poked from behind the fence, clothed in a trench-coat. Both of his arms rested at his sides, leaving the camera to.... My mind couldn't process what I was seeing at first, but with a course of shivers I realized what I was looking at... The camera was the man's head.

With a shout Jared charged at the thing with his knife poised, diving over the fence and stabbing it directly in the chest. I ran after him, peering over the fence to find him on top of the thing.

As I climbed over the fence, he let out another shout as he brought the knife down again, and again. I heard Jared curse, the thing let out a low static hum, then pushed Jared off and scrambled away, keeping its camera head locked onto us.

"You alright?!" I said as I helped Jared back onto his feet.

"...yeah. Shit! Its body... it's all these wires linked tightly together." he said as he showed me the knife, which was broken in half.

The thing was now just standing there on the other side of the street, watching us through the rain. We had a staring contest with it for about minute, Jared and I were so utterly bewildered by the thing that we couldn't keep our eyes off of it.

"What do we do about it?" I asked.

"Shit... I don't know. It's not doing anything, just watching us, which is fucking creepy but... I guess we just leave the freak alone."

"Let's go back in the house, make sure everything's really secure." I said, climbing back over the fence. We stared at the thing for another long moment before we turned the corner of the house; now it was trying to hide behind a street pole.

"Hey Markus..." Jared started.

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck does this mean? I mean... what the fuck!?"

"I don't know," I turned away from the thing and went to the door, "I really... really do not know."

Without another word we sealed up the basement and went back to our beds. Sarah and Aaron fell asleep after we reassured them. But Jared and I... I think both of us kept our eyes locked on the stairs the entire time, expecting that camera-headed thing to be staring at us.