Daemon of the Dark Wood by Randy Chandler Read Free Book Online Page B

as soothing as the sound of a gentle rain on a tin roof, and Julie swiftly drifted into the seductive netherworld of sleep.
    * * * *
    She wakes with a start. The computer’s screen gives off an eerie green glow in the darkened room. She eases herself off the bed and sits at the desk. She reads the green letters on the black screen.
    HE COMES
    She hears the droning patter of Angela’s shower and the hum of water moving through pipes. She gives her head a shake, trying to clear her sleep-fogged mind. “I didn’t write this,” she says. “Who did?”
    Another line of green typeface appears on the screen.
    MICHAEL
    “You gotta be shitting me,” she says in disbelief. Then she shouts: “Angela! How the hell are you doing this?”
    She stares at the screen. “Michael?
My
Michael?”
    YES
    “This is not real. I’m dreaming is what this is.”
    DREAM REAL
    “Whoa, what the fu—”
All the letters of the next two lines appear simultaneously.
    HE CALLS
    DONT ANSWER
    “I don’t understand,” she says, her heart drumming against her rib cage. “What’re you saying?”
    More letters appear onscreen.
    ZXXIALIERNVOSLDMKRPZXUY
    “Michael? I can’t read that. That’s gibberish. Michael?”
    When no new line appears, Julie begins to tremble with dread. Her teeth chatter, though she is not cold. “Michael? Don’t leave me. Please!”
    EOKJF;OUASDGVVPEROTU
    With tears streaming down her cheeks, Julie places her hands on the screen and whimpers: “Why did you leave me?”
    LSBADLKD PLACELAMLZXUFDARKNVNUONEMDCOMEST
    The extraneous letters fade away and Julie reads the remaining words.
    BAD PLACE DARK ONE COMES
    Before she can speak again, the screen goes dark.
    An oozing, suffocating darkness envelops her and she is drawn irresistibly into a black chasm …
    * * * *
    Wrapping a bath towel around her dripping body, Angela lifted her mug from the bathroom counter and drank the last of her hot toddy, then sloshed some bourbon into the mug and drank it straight. She moved languidly to the bedroom window and gazed out at the forested mountainside and at the houses dotting the ridge above her. Hillbilly houses, she thought, inhabited by backwoods in-breeders straight out of
Deliver

ance
. Cow fuckers who tell you to squeal like a pig while they sodomize you. She snickered at her own childish cynicism, then amended the thought: Most of them are probably decent God-fearing people, the same as me—except for the God-fearing part. Though she had been raised in the Methodist church, she had decided early on that if there
was
a God, He would not be the wrathful figure of vengeance the pulpit-pounders liked to portray. No, He would more likely be an It, a cosmic intelligence underpinning everything from the infinitesimal to the infinite. Heaven and Hell were no more than constructs of the frail human mind, and Good and Evil didn’t exist outside of human perceptions. Angela had learned that in Philosophy 101. Funny though, that Julie had taken the same course and come away with a totally different outlook. But then, no amount of philosophy could make Jools give up her guardian angel. Old Mikey was her angelic crutch, her soothing delusion. Angela didn’t begrudge her that. Whatever gets you through the night, like that old John Lennon song said.
    As was often the case, the bourbon put Angela in a philosophical state of mind, so she went across the hall to find an audience for her pregnant pontifications. But her would-be audience was curled up on her bed, catching a few afternoon Z’s. “Sweet dreams, Jools,” she whispered, and decided a nap wasn’t such a bad idea. She went back to her room, tossed off the bath towel and lay down naked on her own bed.
Just a short nap, then I’ll explore our new digs.
    * * * *
    The stone angels wear the pale blush of moonlight and Angela marvels at the way their blank eyes seem to follow her every move as she wanders through the garden of smooth stones. The walls of hedges enclosing the