IS

I entered back into the kitchen through the garage entrance that still even now, smelled of horrible and slowly fleeting disgustingness, but different from that of Powder.

Where Powder’s scent combined of rotting fish and ammonia, his malicious twin gave off a scent resembling rotting flesh and traces of something else that burned my eyes… or just dead things.

I walked every inch of the house, turning on every light, and then the large forty-inch flat screen in the family room, surrounding myself with what I hoped to be enough sound and light to ward off even the darkest entity. Curtains were closed, and blinds were dropped. I found myself drawn to a local news segment on missing children in the U.S. that entwined my questions with pre-existing statements Powder had made to me, just the night before.

There were photos of faces ranging from the smallest and youngest of innocence, to older teenage hopefuls with what would have been a whole great big world of future life ahead of them. I turned to the fridge door where Corey had, over the years, built a collage of pictures showing our children at different stages of their lives. A sickening feeling wrenched my gut at the thought of losing one, or even both of them. This was too much to bear, and I fell back onto the couch to deal with my anguish.

“More tears, Joshua?” My alien conscience spoke once again.

“Where are you now? Or even more importantly, where is it?” I asked, as I sat up and wiped my eyes dry.

“I do not understand!”

“What? What don’t you understand?”

“I am not able to read him. I cannot see where he is. It is as if he were gone from here now.”

“Well that’s good right? That’s great!” I responded, prematurely.

“You do not grasp just how serious this is, Joshua!”

“What? Why?”

“The possibility that he is gone is unacceptable. As I made clear to you once before, he will never stop until he has completed his purpose.”

“Maybe he just gave up. Called it quits?” I responded again, betting everything dear to me on the cusp of wishful thinking… when my mind fell quiet, with no other response. Only thoughts that fed the escalated terror that now surged my body.

“Powder!” I called out to no avail. The TV raved on about how one detergent could get your whites whiter than the others–-when all the power suddenly died, putting me in close to total darkness, with nothing more than a dim glare of the Stanton’s security light to partially illuminate the kitchen.

In practically every movie I’ve ever seen, someone at this point would go downstairs to check on the panel to see if maybe a breaker had, for some ridiculous reason, tripped. But, I knew how that usually ended for that particular sap. I remained still and quiet with my heart hammering hard in my chest.

“Powder!” I forcefully whispered, as my eyes frantically traveled blindly around the dark space. All my human senses and emotions were on high alert as I listened patiently to the dead calm.

“Powder!” I whispered yet again. The under cabinet stereo to the right of the fridge came on, playing my least favorite song in the world, as I reluctantly succumbed once more to an eerie serenade of “I Got You Babe”, echoing loudly throughout the house. This played on for a few measures and then stopped, giving way to the sound of voices whispering from somewhere within the blackness that surrounded me.

I began to feel overwhelmed with dizziness as I tried to follow those whispers which seemed to move, taunting me, urging me here and there; growing increasingly louder as I felt myself turning in circles, before falling against, and then tumbling blindly over one of the dining room chairs, then eventually falling to the hard ceramic floor.

I quickly rose to my feet to find that the voices had stopped, though I had to hold onto something until the lightheadedness also stopped. I actually felt sick with fear; nauseous to the extent that I was surely going to throw up. It was not unlike the physical trauma one would feel at the sight of coming upon a dead body, or even coming within the smells of something dead and decomposed. Not too far removed from the rancid scent the evil had brought as its calling card.

I could hold back no more. I grabbed onto the table and bent over, surrendering what little I had to offer, before it just became painful abdominal spasms at close intervals, yielding every last bit of disgusting watery bile I had in me. I then staggered for the kitchen sink to rinse the bitter taste of grossness from my mouth and splash the cool water over my face. I came to realize the possibility, because the night was still young, that these morbid games had only just begun. That if it was unable to kill me just yet, it would surely put to test just how far a human would cling to life-–before begging for death.

Without Powder in my corner, I wasn’t sure how much of this I could take, or where the hell I could even turn, now that I had tasted the wicked flavors of its wrath. I was helpless, a man without a country as I stood quiet in the menacing darkness of my own house; a powerless fool who was outmatched in his own arena. For whatever reason, my only ally had left me cold. And I was now compelled to face this alone, just as it was in the beginning.

Only now, I knew what I was up against, and that there could be no light at the end of the tunnel. There was no light–-there was no tunnel–-only the end.

Officer Daniel Lee Daniels was finishing up with his paperwork to end yet another grueling shift at the Clayton Twp. Police Department. And when I say grueling, I am, of course, referring to the fact that he was as bored as bored could ever get. His life was lacking of any positive substance whatsoever, with him at times actually envisioning taking the safety off of his Glock 22 and firing a shot directly into his head.

Although, seeing as how he had been a police officer for the better part of eight years now, he was well aware that the best possible and most fatal shot he could take would be through the mouth, firing upward and into the brain stem, thus having at least an 88.8% chance of ending his insufferable life, right there on the spot. Not an uncommon thought, since the day his wife had left him for his former best friend, eighteen months almost to this exact day. Their marriage had lasted only three years, up to just about the time he had been stupid enough to bring around his old college roommate and best buddy, Conner Bleaks.

Dan made a crucial error of judgment the day he brought Conner home to meet his lovely wife, Sarah. That was the beginning of the end for Dan, as Sarah had no choice but to fall hard for the University of Michigan’s former most popular and certainly most celebrated bachelor. His chiseled Marlboro Man looks, light brown hair, and green eyes had made life easy for him, especially when it came to the opposite sex. And what a coincidence, that when Conner had decided to finally settle down and take a wife-–it would be Dan’s.

Dan found himself talking to his gun on a regular basis. He even had a name for it. He called it Will—for where there is a Will, there was a way. Sometimes he would have long, drawn out conversations with Will; inquiring an opinion, or just venting on about the day in general, and how he had again dreamt about walking in on Sarah and Conner, using Will’s cold, black steel power to end his pain.

But enough about the life and eccentricities of Danny D, as he was commonly referred to by practically everyone who knew him. After all, with everything he had been through emotionally, the boundaries of what was considered to be appropriate, or even normal, were bound to be elasticized to at least a small degree-–yes?

He was just about to walk out the station door, when his cell phone called out to him from the right front pocket of his slacks, playing the theme from Hawaii Five-O, his favorite show since he had been a kid.

“Hello?” He hadn’t recognized the number.

“Danny D! What’s going on, my brother?” It was Frank, all revved up and still in vacation mode.

“Frankie! What the hell are you doing? You should be out partying with beautiful women and getting shit faced!”

“Well, I got one of those covered!” he said, with a definite slur in his voice. “But I’m kind of failing in the other department!” he laughed.

Frank and his brother-in law George had been planning this trip to Huntington Beach for the past six months, insisting that they were going to—as Frank had put it many times prior—tear it up and take no prisoners. But, seeing as how Frank Williams was a far cry from acquiring the status of Ladies Man, or Conner Bleaks, the only thing he was assured of tearing up was his wallet, or possibly his stomach, depending on what he had been drinking during his absence from good old Clayton Twp. Mi.

“Just thought I’d give my buddy a call!” he yelled in Dan’s ear, as his voice was accompanied by a constant blur of loud dance music in the background.

“When you coming back?” Dan yelled.

“What?”

“Back! When are you coming back?” Dan shouted again.

“Three more days!” Frank responded. “You’ve been good, right?” Frank then asked. Even in his inebriated condition, he knew the pain his friend was going through, and didn’t quite trust staying away for too long.

“Oh, I’m good buddy. Really.” Dan replied, doing his best to disguise his lonesome.

“No stalking, no drunk-n-dials?” Frank asked, keeping in check.

“No, everything’s been quiet and boring on the home front. But it seems that I have a bone to pick with you!”

“What?”

“That prank you pulled before you left!” Dan said, as a big smile washed over his face. Frank Williams was always on the prowl with some crazy unexpected trick up his sleeve to make life just a little more interesting, even if only for himself. Everyone around the station had pretty much accepted his antics by now.

“Prank?” he asked, when there was a break in the music behind him.

“Yeah! You know. That guy you had come in to complain about the giant albino… classic!”

The receiver remained quiet for a few seconds, before Frank finally spoke with a much more somber tone to his voice. “Danny boy-–I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s how we’re going to play this, eh?”

“Dan, listen to me. There was no prank, and I put no one up to anything! Seriously!” A dead space of silence fell between them, before Frank spoke again. “Hold on a second, I want to step outside so that I can hear you better.”

As Frank made his way through the crowd of people towards the door, an anxious feeling began to creep into Dan’s chest; only this feeling of anxiety wasn’t the result of what he had been dealing with. It wasn’t the angst of a heated triangle of pain, and deception. This was rather a feeling of mistake and misconception. Suddenly, while he still waited, he began to visualize the man that had come into the station that night, and how the look on his face hadn’t really been an act at all.

“Okay. Now what did he say to you? Can you remember?” Frank asked, still with a slur, but actually sounding like a cop.

“Something about a tall albino looking guy who had actually chased him down the old river path. This guy said that he was hanging around his neighborhood at night, and that he believed that he had something to do with what happened to that deer you and I pulled out of that fence the other day.”

“And you just took it as a prank?” Frank asked.

“Seriously-–wouldn’t you?

“Yeah, sounds a little crazy… wish I would have thought of it,” he replied.

“But this wasn’t you-–seriously?” Dan asked.

“No, brother. You gonna check it out?”

“Yeah, my shift’s over. But I may have to drive over there and see what’s what,” Dan said.

“You remember the guy’s name?”

“Something Stone. Jack, John… Josh! Yeah, it was Josh Stone, I think.”

“Careful, brother! And call me tomorrow, or even later if you need to.”

“Will do!” Dan reported, as he hit the end button on his phone and slid it back into his pocket. In his eyes, the night was still young. And besides, he sure as hell hadn’t anything else on his agenda but maybe a quick drive through at McDonalds, and to catch up on his DVR.

A stiff but warm breeze rushed over him that smelled of freshly cut grass and fresh mulch, as he crossed the lot towards his car, all the while seeing a replay of Joshua Stone’s face, and the desperation he must have felt. Dan knew a thing or two about desperation, and felt like a complete idiot for blowing him off like he had.

“Dammit!” he blurted out, just before he inserted the key to unlock the door of his brand new Camaro. It was all black, even the rims, with tinted windows to boot. He had only had it for a week or so, and everyone at the station called it the Bat mobile. He climbed in and turned the ignition, igniting the roar as he sat frozen in thought.

“What do you think, Will?” he announced in the quiet air-tight privacy of his new car smell, as if he was expecting a response. He then glanced about for a quick check to see if anyone was around, before sliding his friend out for a man to gun visit. Will was black and shiny, stealthy also, weighing in at 34.42 oz. fully loaded, with fifteen rounds of forty caliber dominance.

After admiring his companion for several minutes, Dan brought it up and pressed its cold inanimate steel barrel against his right cheek, closing his eyes in response to a deep and dark passion that took him over. He then slid Will back into his place of rest, revved his engine a couple of times, and announced, “I am Batman!” just before slamming it into gear, speeding across the lot, and jetting out onto Fulton Street, on a mission to see what was what; unaware of the possibility he would be pitted against something so incomprehensible, no villain in the history of all villains—real or imagined—would have had the tenacity to go up against, or for that matter, could have ever even conceived.