Eyes in the Dark

It had been two weeks since Ivan had left his home. Two weeks of darkness, cold, and unrelenting winds. He recalled his family pleading with him to stay, “there’s no way you will make it alive”. I must make it, he thought, I must find a new home for my family. Three years of winter, no crops, no livestock, no hope. I must find a way.

Nuclear war had enveloped the world in chaos and destruction. The aftermath; however, was infinitely worse. Yes, the threat of being blown to smithereens at any given moment had gone, but in its wake was an endless nuclear winter.

Ivan had been enlisted into the army at 27, leaving behind his wife, Kasia and their two daughters, Sonia and Anna. The war was brutal, all sides tallying heavy losses. Brought on by the century long plague, the world had fallen into turmoil. Civil unrest, coupled with a worldwide food shortage had caused tensions to become so taught that the slightest provocation would result in a cataclysmic release. That release came on December 28th, 2099. That was the year the world went to shit. Ivan could recall the day vividly. Nuclear warheads began to drop on every major city in the Northern Hemisphere, and within 6 months the Southern Hemisphere was included in the destruction. Ivan was smart though, and somehow managed to survive both the civil war in his own country of Ukraine, as well as the nuclear barrage that sent the world reeling back into the dark ages. After the bombings had ceased, there was no more war, for there were no longer countries to fight against or for, for that matter.

Ivan managed to whisk his family out of the rubble, eternally grateful that they had survived the destruction. They made their way northeast, trudging through the snow and cold until they finally came to Ivan’s familial farm, close to the borders of what once was Siberia. Nestled in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, life here was hard, cold, and unforgiving. For the first two years they stayed there, trying to eke out a living in the gloom of eternal winter. The first year was the easiest, Ivan was able to find some wandering cattle that escaped or had been released from their pastures when their former owners failed to return from the war. Most farms stood abandoned these days, dreary apparitions in the snow, shadows from a forgotten time. The cattle fed his family well for the first year, but soon their numbers dwindled. By the end of their second year, the cattle had all either died or had been consumed. Ivan began a vigorous routine of setting off into the mountains in search of wild game. He had some luck, and managed to knock down a few deer shortly after his last cow died. That saved them, and they endured the relentless cold as another dismal winter came and went.

Winter and summer were hardly different anymore. The days of summer had a slightly lighter hue of grey, while the winter days were almost entirely filled with blackness. Winds blew down from the mountains day and night, and if there was a blizzard, going outside was suicide. Yet here he was, in the middle of a dead winter, beginning a trek that he could only hope would bring his family to salvation.

The wind whipped around him, biting at his face and hands. He wandered south, like a wraith in the dark, trusting a broken compass his grandfather had given him when he was a boy back in Kiev. Kasia had pleaded with him not to trust his compass, it had been broken for years and she was sure it would just get him lost, but he trusted it anyway. It worked when I was a boy, it worked when I was in the war, it will work now. He recalled the days of his boyhood frequently, and took comfort in the hope that soon he would be able to give his daughters the opportunity to live a childhood like he had. It hadn’t been perfect, and there had been a goodly amount of struggle, but still he had fond memories of warm summer nights spent carelessly playing with other boys in his neighbourhood. Now, however, he pushed on into the endless expanse of grey cold, steadfast in his belief that he could find a safe haven where his girls would be able to live their lives without fear of starvation or worse.

He stopped for the night, taking shelter behind a stand of windblown, sickly looking trees. After digging a small pit in the snow he set out to gather some firewood. Returning with a couple modest armfuls of dry wood, he lit a fire and set out his bedroll beside it. He plopped down onto it and pulled his pack off his back, dug out a small package of deer meat, deftly skewered it and set it upon the fire to cook. He reached back into his pack, pulled out a stout metal mug, scooped up some snow, and tossed in a couple handfuls of pine needles. He then set it beside the fire to melt and steep while he turned his skewer. After dinner, he sipped his pine tea and settled down, staring into his little fire, basking in what meagre heat it produced, and dozed off.

He slept fitfully, tossing and turning while vivid images of long forgotten sunshine and death bounced through his head at a dizzying pace. He awoke once to the sound of distant howls, but after listening for a few minutes he concluded it was just the wind or a trick of the mind, and soon fell asleep again. The next morning dawned as bleak and dreary as ever, so Ivan made little time packing up and heading off. After about 15 minutes, he noticed a large amount of animal tracks, crisscrossing the snow in front of him. He hunched over and examined them carefully. Wolves, he said to himself, so it hadn’t been the wind that awoke me last night. I’ll have to be careful then, they likely smelled my dinner. That day went on much as the last, he kept his eyes to the ground in search of more tracks, but found none. The following days offered no new threats, but Ivan kept his guard up. After another week of slogging through snow and wind, his body was stiff with cold. The winds had changed direction now, and were instead blowing northeast, right into his face as he made his solemn, lonely procession toward something he could not quite reach.

Ten days now, he thought, ten days and I should be standing on the banks of Lake Balkhash, if my compass is true. It was still dark and cold, but to make matters worse, the howling that had awoken him a week before was now much more regular. His rations of meat were meagre, and hunger pangs were just a fact of life at this point. He still had not seen any more sign of the wolves that had encircled his camp in that lonely little stand of trees, but he knew they were following him now. He had to stay alert. During the day he would move, and at night, he would forgo his little fire and eat his meat cold. It was less than appetizing but he had endured worse in the years he was a soldier. The meat they had eaten then was cold too, but worse was where it came from.

He shuddered, pushing the thought from his mind. Cold food was one thing, but his evening fire was more than just a means to cook. It was warmth, it was hope, and perhaps most important, it was light. In a world thrust into man-made nuclear darkness and endless winter, the light was sometimes the only thing that would keep him sane. He often wondered how many people had gone mad, run howling off into the icy dark abyss, never to be seen again. Even with a fire blazing in a hearth, after too long in the dark, the shadows would play twisted games with ones mind. But, then again, he thought, it takes a certain level of madness to even survive in such miserable conditions. After another cold dinner of venison and even colder pine tea, he pondered the thought as he laid out his bedroll and curled up for the night to doze off. Once again his dreams were dark, full of fragmented memories of his time in battle. At one point he was running from some unseen horror, but his legs felt like they were made of concrete. Just as he was certain he would be killed in some unknown, gruesome way, his mind shifted again. Now, all he could see was a faint, distant light. The harder he looked the farther it seemed to get. At first it was a ruddy orange purple hue, but the longer he watched the more vibrant it became.

Ivan was jolted out of his enlightened dream state by a sudden, piercing wail. It was so loud he was certain whatever deranged creature made the noise must be very close. Too close. His eyes darted this way and that as he desperately searched the darkness for movement. But with no light from a fire and the moon only a memory, Ivan could only sit in terror and hope whatever it was couldn’t see him either. In the distance, he could make out faint howls from the wolves, and then another blood curdling wail. This time it was closer. Ivan slowly reached into his bedroll, trying his hardest to keep from making even the slightest noise, and pulled a small work knife to his chest. He held it there and sat still, certain his heart would beat itself right out of his chest. The howls from the wolves had stopped. Whatever was making that terrible noise, he thought, is even scaring them off. If I’m lucky, it will pass me by and those damnable things will finally leave me alone. Another scream, although this one slightly farther away, seemingly in the direction of the wolf pack.

Ivan sat on his bedroll clutching his knife. The screeches eventually faded off into the darkness, but at one point Ivan thought he had heard the yelps and cries of some of the wolves, but then again, it could have been a trick of the wind. His stomach was twisted from the hours of sitting stone still, but suddenly it began to grumble. Hunger had started to set in. It had been at least two hours since the last fading wail on the wind before Ivan dared to pick himself up. Time to get out of here, he decided, and quick, his stomach would have to wait.

As the hours and miles slowly slipped by, Ivan’s thoughts of food faded, and his feeling from the previous night’s encounter shifted from terror to curiosity. He hadn’t heard a noise like that from any animal he had ever seen or heard before, and though his terror had faded, he felt uneasy. He racked his brain as he trudged along, trying to determine what could have made the noises he had heard, and he was suddenly struck with a thought. One of his old army buddies, Petr, right after they started dropping bombs, had told him a rumour that certain people and animals who were in close proximity to some of the larger nuclear blasts had been horribly disfigured by radiation.

“Most of em die,” Petr told him, “but some of em don’t. Better hope you don’t run into any of em, I’ve heard the radiation makes em crazy as fuck, more likely to eat ya first and kill ya later, or so i’m told.”

Ivan had laughed when Petr told him, but when Petr looked back at him he could see there was a solemn seriousness in his eyes. He didn’t laugh much after that. Besides, shortly after that day, the entire army had to report to medical for “ANTI-RAD injections.” The army had told them that government scientists were able to isolate a slice of DNA from some bizarre creature immune to high levels of radiation. They created a serum from it to prevent any side effects of the upcoming nuclear fallout. Fat load of good that did, Ivan thought, 9 in 10 of us died anyways. He shook his head and tried to clear his mind. Thoughts like that weren’t gonna make the trip any easier, and even though it had been hours since last hearing the… whatever that was, Ivan still had a strong feeling of unease as he plodded forward. He had noticed it shortly after packing up camp and it only grew stronger as the day went on. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when he thought about it. It felt as though he was being watched, but he brushed it off as a mild case of paranoia from the lack of calories he was getting by now.

As evening wore on, Ivan watched as the shadowy figure of an old farmhouse slowly took shape in the distance. As he approached, he noted no sign of smoke or light coming from the house. The thought of a night out of the wind and four solid walls around him made his heart jump and he picked up his feet and hurried toward the door. The house reminded him of his own home, but there was something different about it. The door creaked as he slowly opened it.

”Hello?” he called into the gloom. He closed the door behind him as snow swirled past the threshold. The house was dark, but seemed to be kept quite neat. Whoever used to live here kept a decent home, he thought, as he threw his pack from his back and reached in, fumbling for a small metal tin of deer tallow. He opened it and scooped a fingerful of its greasy contents into the lid, placing the lid down on a little wooden table. He then pulled a pack of strike anywhere matches from his inside pocket, struck one, and held it to the tallow. Soon it was guttering along happily and throwing off just enough light that Ivan could make out the room.

From the outside, the farmhouse looked like most of the others he had passed on his journey, but that was as far as the similarities went. The inside was immaculate, plaster walls scrubbed to a brilliant white, and the wood plank floor looked as if it had been swept just hours before. His own home had been kept tidy as well; Kasia would not allow them to live in a dirty home, even though there was nobody left to come by. Even the low hanging roof beams seemed to be devoid of dust. Ivan spotted a candle sitting on a ledge above a small stone fireplace. He grabbed it and tipped its end over his tallow light. Wax dripped off its tip as it sprang to light, and Ivan used it to inspect the rest of the house.

He walked toward a door at the far end of the main room, but as he raised his hand to open it, his uneasy feeling of being watched suddenly returned. He looked around the dim room reassuring himself that there was nobody else in here with him, shook his head, and pushed the door open. As he entered, he noticed it was considerably colder than the room he had just left. A bed stood in the corner, blankets and sheets set as if its owner had intended on returning to it. Wind whipped the drapes from a small, open window adjacent to the bed, but yet no snow had accumulated inside. Odd, he thought, as he continued to survey the room. As he walked toward the window to shut it, a gust of wind whipped through the room and blew his candle out. His eyes took a moment to adjust, but in the blackness he was almost sure he could make out what looked to be the eerie reflection of eyes through the window. He blinked and looked again, but now found only darkness. He closed the window and strode back into the main room of the house, relit his candle, and sat down on a rough wooden chair next to the table, his sense of unease once again spiked. It must have been my mind playing tricks again, he thought, eyes in the dark. He shook his head again and tried to push the thought from his brain. His stomach let out an enormous growl, and Ivan realized he still had not eaten since the night before, and even that was just a couple scraps of half dried, half frozen deer meat.

He debated whether it would be wise to just eat his venison cold again, but the thought of a fire, the warmth and comfort of a night out of the cold overwhelmed his urge to caution. He quickly grabbed some tinder and kindling from a neat stack next to the fireplace, and in minutes a respectable fire roared to life. He then set about dinner. A medium sized cookpot hung next to the fireplace. Ivan took it outside and filled it with snow. He then returned and hung the pot above his fire, tossing in some cut up chunks of venison and another fingerful of tallow.

While his dinner cooked, he decided it was probably a wise idea to inspect the exterior of the home. The image of those haunting eyes was still fresh in his mind, and he knew if he didn’t investigate he would not sleep. He stepped out into the cold, closed the door behind him, and, with the little light emanating from the windows, he made his way around the perimeter of the house. As he reached the bedroom window, his eyes darted to the ground, looking for any sign of footsteps in the snow. Nothing, he observed, no footsteps, no indication that anything had been there. Relieved, he turned and walked back toward the front of the house. Just as he was about to reach the door, something small fell onto his head and tumbled to the ground. "What the hell?!” he exclaimed, and looked up to see where it had come from. Once again, a pair of eyes stared back into his, but this time they weren’t ghostly eyes in the night. A barn owl sat upon the eaves and looked at him with indifference.

“Fucking owl! I just about pissed myself!” As he gazed back down he could feel a drip of something warm running down his forehead. The owl hoo’d at him once, then on silent wings took off. He opened the door and light spilled out into the night. At his feet, Ivan saw what he thought was a dead mouse. Without a second thought, he entered the house and closed the door behind him. He sat back down and raised a hand to his head, wiping some of the warm fluid from his head as he sat back. He looked at his fingers in the gloom and tried to discern what it was. Probably just some blood from that damn mouse, he thought, but it didn’t look like blood, it was too dark. Almost black. He smelled it, it was vile but he couldn’t discern what it was. He touched a bit to his tongue, wretched, and spat it back out. What the hell is this, he wondered. He wiped the rest of it off with his sleeve and stood back up, intent to investigate the origin of this mysterious black goo he had so graciously been gifted by that damned owl.

He threw open the door again and reached down into the snow to retrieve what he had originally thought to be a mouse. He quickly returned inside and closed the cold out again. Walking to the fire to get a proper look at what was in his hand, he suddenly was gripped with disgust. This is no mouse, its a human thumb! What the hell is going on here? Disgusted, he threw it into the fire and wiped his hand on his leg. The smell of his skimpy stew now entwined with the smell of burning flesh turned his stomach and the hunger that had been so acute just minutes before was gone.

He sighed, resigned himself to another night without food, and set about getting himself ready for bed. His thoughts were scrambled as he lay down his sleeping mat in front of the fire. The thought of sleeping in a bed was enticing, but the feeling Ivan had while he was in the bedroom left him much more comfortable sleeping on the floor in the main room. He was tired, more tired now than he had been through his whole trip, and even his confusion and alarm at his recent severed thumb discovery could not abate his need for rest. He closed his eyes as he tucked himself into his sleep sack, and immediately fell asleep.

His dreams were particularly terrifying. Dismembered bodies and sickening howls of agony racked his brain, howls like he had heard in that little stand of trees in the middle of nowhere. The howling intensified, and Ivan’s mind was battered with images of decaying corpses shambling about, their mouths agape, twisted into expressions of tormented anguish. The bodies of children wandered aimlessly, screaming DADDY!! WHY HAVE YOU LEFT US TO DIE!! His mind reeled at the sights, and though he tried desperately to wake up from this nightmare, the corpses and death just kept coming. All of a sudden the images ceased. Then, after a moment of calm, another figure shambled forward. It was hideous, a decaying husk of what may have once been human. It stumbled forward until it was fully into view. Tattered shreds of clothing hung from its cold flesh, its eyes black as night, but deep within a small glow, like the eyes Ivan had seen in the bedroom window. Hair hung in chunks from its disfigured scalp. There was something else too, something familiar, a scent of something from his past. It wailed, and Ivan’s whole body shook with its terrible voice. It then raised a hand, reaching toward Ivan, though he could not move away. It’s fingers reaching for him, and with a jolt he saw it, four fingers and a gaping wound where its thumb should be. It screamed again, sending a fresh wave of terror through Ivan. He struggled desperately to wake up, but still the nightmare gripped him tight. The creature grabbed him by the neck, and began to pull him in.

“You will never leave us again,” it whispered before letting out another bone chilling shriek.

Ivan shot up from his bedroll, sweating and panting as if he had just ran a marathon. What is wrong with me!? he wondered, as he tried to shake the lingering feeling of dread. He raised a hand to his neck where the creature in his dream had grabbed him, and noticed it was wet and especially cold. He looked down at his hand, and, instead of sticky cold sweat, his palm was coated in the same black goo he had running down his face the previous evening. Before he could process what he was seeing, a deafening wail erupted from the bedroom next to him. Paralyzed with fear, Ivan could only watch in horror as the doorknob jerkily turned, and the door was violently thrown open. A wave of frigid air flooded into the room, his candles and fire immediately snuffed out. In the darkness, Ivan could make out the sound of shuffling footsteps slowly coming toward him. His nostrils flared as the stench of decay filled his lungs, and he gagged as he scrambled to his feet. He turned to run, but found, like in a nightmare, that he could hardly move. He struggled desperately to reach the door as another scream pierced his ears, and he dropped to his knees in terror. He covered his face with his sleeve, trying to escape the stench, and again, a scent of something familiar, perfume maybe? His mind reeled as he tried to escape, and just as his hand reached the door the room fell eerily silent.

He looked around and saw nothing in the darkness. His ears strained to hear even the slightest noise, but no sound came. He slowly got to his feet, half expecting to have his throat wrung by whatever wraith it was that had burst into the room. But nothing came. He gathered what remained of his courage, reached into his inside pocket again, pulled out another match, and struck it. He quickly re-lit his candles and looked around. The door to the bedroom was still open, but there was nothing else in the house. The stench of death had gone as well, but oddly, there still lingered the familiar smell of perfume.

He steadied himself, closed the door to the bedroom, and for good measure this time, he jammed the wooden chair against its doorknob. It was still the middle of the night, and Ivan knew he should get some more sleep before setting off in the morning, though all his being screamed at him to leave. As he laid himself back down after his harrowing experience, a thought shot a shiver of realization through him. The smell! It’s the same as Kasia used to use! But how could that be? I’m miles from home, I’ve been gone for weeks! He felt his whole body stiffen at the thought, and once again was overcome with inescapable fatigue. He tried to fight it, but slipped quickly back into sleep. This time his dreams were quiet. His mind slowly drifting from his childhood to memories of his own children back at home. He watched as his two daughters gleefully ran from the door to welcome him home from a hunting expedition. But as they approached him they slowed, and their expressions became sad.

“You’re not coming back this time, are you daddy?” They asked. He couldn’t understand what they meant.

“Of course I’m coming back! Girls! I’m right here.” They began to cry, and their cries turned to wails. Louder and louder they grew in his mind until it felt as though his head would explode from the noise.

He awoke slowly, his mind racing from his most recent dream. Why were they saying that? Why would I leave them behind? What the hell is wrong with me? His ears perked up as he heard what he thought was the distant sound of singing. He sat up and looked around, noticing it was still dark as night outside. Probably still is, he thought, though the sound did not cease. As he picked himself up, he thought he could hear a scratching noise coming from the bedroom. Cautiously, he made his way across the floor with no aid of light to the bedroom door. Moving the chair from the door, he reached for the doorknob and the scratching sound started up again, louder this time. Ripping the door open, Ivan was struck with terror. Standing in front of him was the wraith again, but now it was joined with two other, smaller ghouls. In unison they screamed, and the force of the noise sent him sprawling across the floor. He scrambled to get himself up again but with unnatural quickness the three were on him. The smaller ones held his arms down while the third, groaning, sunk down onto his chest.

“We begged you not to go, my love,” the wraith rasped, “now you will be with us forever.”

They all screamed again, this time Ivan certain he would go mad from the intensity of it, and he screamed as his vision faded to black. The last thought to run through his mind was of him and his family, sitting around a fire together. His daughters nibbled on some food, and he and Kasia shared a jug of wine together as he sat in the warmth of the fire. The sun was setting in the window to the west, and he breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of the fire and Kasia’s irresistible perfume. She turned to him then.

“We can live like this forever now,” she said, as she finished bandaging her hand. From under the wrappings, Ivan could see blackness oozing through the fresh bandage where her thumb should have been. His eyes darted to her face, and she smiled an unearthly smile.

“Forever.”