Darkness Depart

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“I don’t know where the beginning is!”

“How did this all happen?”

“I’m very naïve…”

Here, he put his pen down and looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

“Just the facts, ma’am.”

“I met him over the internet. He was very charming, and seemed to have a lot in common with me.”

“His name?”

“Henry Thomas...but I found out later that wasn’t his name. Nothing was as it seemed.” Here, she laughed shakily and shivered.

The officer looked up at her and the blue and red siren lights washed his face over and over as the strobe turned around and around. Red,Blue. Red, Blue. It was hypnotizing.

“Ma’am?”

She blinked and looked around. The blood, the feathers strewn everywhere. She hugged the blanket the medic gave her to her body and shivered again.

“I don’t think he was human,” she whispered.

“Ma’am please speak louder. Here!” He motioned a man in a white coat over and then whispered in his ear. The man nodded and turned back to the ambulance to get something.

Everything was in slow motion; she felt woozy and sat down hard upon the parking lot.

*

He had wanted to meet her in a darkened parking lot at the old abandoned theater. All her warning bells rang off, but he had said he was nervous around people. He was very shy. She had talked to him on the phone for hours and hours for almost three months before she agreed to meet him, and she had come armed with mace, her cell phone, and a knife. But she felt she was being foolish. She felt she knew him well. His voice was so soothing and sexy. His words seemed so full of love and truth. And she was so very lonely. Everything happened so fast...


The man in the white coat came back and handed her a small pill, and water in a Dixie cup. She took it without thinking what it was. The officer and the man whispered again, and she heard “in shock” and “bring in for observation.” She was too exhausted to care.

The officer flipped through his notebook. “Genevieve?”

She waved a hand. “Jenny. Please... everyone calls me Jenny.”

“Ms. Jenny it says that when you called 9-1-1 you reported you attacked a demon, a monster that escaped?”

She nodded. “Demon or angel. But I think it was a demon. He had horns.”

**

She had walked to the car he had described to her over the phone. It was this old sky-blue Dodge Charger. She saw a huddled shape inside and paused a safe distance away.

“Henry?” She called out, a little annoyed at how scared she sounded. She cleared her throat and called out louder: “Henry?!”

“I am here.”

And his voice! She nearly swooned. His soothing, beautiful voice was like music to her ears. That sounds so cliché but it was. It sounded so much purer and melodic than over the phone. She recognized his voice. All her worries erased. She stepped closer and saw he was deformed, as he seemed to have a large hump on his back, and he was keeping his body and face twisted away from her.

“Oh, Henry!” She breathed softly. “It’s okay,” she assured. “ I don’t care what you look like. Please let me see your face.”

“You really don’t care?” His voice rang with hope, and her heart melted.

“Oh, honey of course not. I love you. Please, let me see you.”

He turned then, and the rest was a blur. She saw horns, and her eyes widened. Horns that were huge and curling like on a bighorn sheep. She didn’t realize she was screaming until he was saying: “No,” and “Please stop!” And HE WAS STEPPING OUT OF THE CAR!

She couldn’t seem to stop screaming, and without thinking she pulled out her knife. Then she saw the wings; Huge, black wings that seemed to cover the sky. She fell to the ground and blacked out. She doesn’t remember attacking Henry, but she must have as there was blood all around; Blood and feathers, and not a scratch on her. He had left the car behind, so he must have flown away.

She looked at the sky then, and told the officer. “He must have flown away.”

A different officer came back with a wallet from the car. “The car is registered to a Billy Rodriguez, is this the..er..man you saw ma’am?”

She glanced at the I.D but knew without looking it couldn’t be him. There are no pictures of him. She shook her head. She looked at each of them then. “I know you think I am crazy, but look at these feathers! Look at the blood!”

Officer number two who had gone to his patrol car to speak to dispatch and who was the officer that checked the car for I.D, now ran excitedly from his patrol car to officer number one. He whispered in his ear, and officer number one pulled out the handcuffs. “Ms. Jenny I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you down to the station, Billy Rodriguez has been found dead.”

Jenny shook her head. “But of course he has. Darkness cometh and darkness depart.”

“What was that?”

“Something my Grandmother used to say: ‘Darkness cometh and darkness depart.’ She danced with demons too.”