Deep Deep Dark

A chilling story of a man and his daughter, who disappeared from light forever.

• Short story
• Horror

								
“Never forget that light is inferior.” -Dark


The rain beats down hard outside his office window and a hollow pinch of exhaustion in his rib cage is lifted when he looks at the time. 
7:30.
It’s time to go home. Finally.
He picks up his bag, the frayed strap reminding him that he needs to order that new backpack he found online. How insignificant it will be soon.
He walks through the rain, back to his apartment. 
A blinding white square of paper laying flat on his doormat flashes in his eyes. His first thought was that it was an advertisement. Probably for something he didn’t want. But at second glance, he sees a peculiar sort of writing. Haunting and almost cold.
	A strange shadow of words is written in an impossible font, each letter curved wickedly in different ways.

	     
Come find Lilly. 
     Deep. Deep. 
   			 Dark.
				
His eyes widen, realizing what this threatening message is telling him. 
Lilly. 
He only left her home alone today. Only today. 
This must be a joke. 
He bursts through the front door and into the house yelling out “Lilly?!” 
No. It couldn’t be. 
He scrambles to find his phone. He has to call the police. 
His phone opens, but somehow floods with darkness as a shadow crosses the screen. 
His hands shudder and shake, dropping the phone on the carpet. 
He experiences a moment of deep shame and panic. It had never been easy being a single father, but how could he have failed her like this!? 
Although the thoughts of a life without his precious daughter Lilly were making his heart ache unbearably, he forces himself to walk forward into the kitchen. 
Frantically, he sifts through the junk drawer in the kitchen, searching for a flashlight.  When he finds one, he reloads the batteries and rushes out the door, feeling little pieces of himself crumbling with each step. 
He takes paranoid strides down the damp road. It stopped raining, but the moisture in the air remains. 
The wind wisps him to a side of the neighborhood he never dared to go. 
He stands before a creaky metal gate, each bar wrapped in thorny roses. 
The night grows darker and he clicks on his flashlight. The beam coming from it is a blinding white and bugs immediately flutter around the glow.
The gate makes a terrible squeak as it swings open. 
He heads down the path overgrown with grass and weeds and scans the area intently with his flashlight, illuminating the thick layer of trees surrounding the graveyard. 
He starts to call out Lilly’s name, desperately hoping she’ll respond with her soft and innocent high pitched voice. 
“Lilly!” He says for the fifth time. 
A shadow moves in front of his light, cutting off the middle of the white beam. 
“Who’s there?!” He exclaims in a scream.
There’s no response, but the shadow refuses to move. 
Feeling trapped, he turns swiftly away from the figure and off of the path. He finds himself passing by gravestones, each with beautifully engraved names. 
He studies the different names on the gravestones to his right. 

        Aria Loveheart
        Thaddeus Downey 
        Cairo and Liza Smith 
        Thomas and Grace Lopez 

The names begin to freak him out. He has always hated graveyards. He doesn’t think it is good to dwell on the dead. Even when his wife died, he forced himself to never think of her. It would only hurt. 
Overcome by his suppressed grief, he looks forward again, only now realizing that his flashlight has gone completely out, which is strange. He had just replaced the batteries. He flips the flashlight around and it shines full power in his face. Blinded, he drops the flashlight on the floor. A wind gusts around him and he picks the light back up, tears rolling down his face from the overwhelming circumstance. 
Still there seems to be a dark shadow preventing his flashlight from producing a ray. Almost like the darkness is swallowing all of the light. 
“Lilly!” He calls out again. 
To his surprise, silence doesn’t follow.
“Deep!” He hears her call back. 
He wipes away his tears and feels an extreme pulse of relief. 
“Lilly?!” He yells, “Where are you?! Where can I find you?!” 
“Deep!” He hears it again.
He tries to track the sound but it seems to be coming from all around. 
“Deep what?!” 
He gives up on the flashlight, turns it off and throws it on the floor. As his eyes adjust, faces appear, surrounding him in a circle. The faces are familiar, but he can’t quite tell why. 
“Lilly!” He screams again, “Deep what?!” 
All the faces open their mouths and respond, “Deep Deep Dark.” 
His eyes widen as the shadowy figures circling him draw in closer. 
Their shadows grip his arms and drag him hard against the floor. 
“Is this what you did to my Lilly?!” 
“Deep Deep Dark.” They respond, ice cold. 
His legs bruise and scrape against the crunchy fall leaves. 
“Please!” He yells, “Stop!” 
To his surprise, they stop, and part the way for him to see a gravestone. 
Bella Anne Thatcher 
He stares at it in a state of confused horror. 
“That’s my wife!” 
The shadows close again, covering the gravestone. 
“Deep deep dark.” The whispers continue. 
“What do you mean?!” He cries. 
They reveal it again, and it shows 

Bella Anne Thatcher
               And
Lilly Anne Thatcher 

“No!” 
His world twists and he reaches out to punch the shadows.  they melt slowly into the night's darkness. Dissolving into his surroundings. 
He sobs, his cries echoing through the streets. 
Two seconds later, the sobs cease bluntly. 
Complete silence. 
The gravestone reads now: 

        Bella Anne Thatcher
                       And
        Lilly Anne Thatcher
                       And 
        Drew Evan Thatcher
                 deep deep
                     - Dark
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes