Ryan's Suffering

Ryan's Suffering

Shadow Walker Series Book 1

Published by Lloyd Paulson at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Lloyd Paulson

www.LloydPaulson.com

email@lloydpaulson.com

*Cover image incorporates Scott Robinson's The Handle Comet.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Part I: Darkness Falls

Ghost of Darkness

Insomnia Falls

Dreamland Replicants

Corn-Fucked Wasteland Binge Drinking

The School of Infinite Patience and Control

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

The Past Comes Rushing In

Dance of the Pigs

The Mystery Benefactor

The Forsaken Soul

Part II: The Fog Rises

A Walk in the Woods

The Basement of Despair

Replicants Rising

The Rough Beasts

The Covenant

Part III: The Dark of Night

The Abyss

The Dam and Damnation

The Mason House

Moloch's Due

Dedication

To my lovely wife Jenn, who found me when I was walking out the other side of a personal black hell in the journey of depression so many years ago, and chose to walk through the journey of life with me. May the wonder never cease.

Part I: Darkness Falls

Of heaven and hell, I knew not of either. Only that somewhere in between, we were forced to forge our own way.

Contemplate this though. This is what one old man, a neighbor, whispered hoarsely to me, as he sat drinking whiskey on the rocks at his dining room table, curtains drawn to keep it dark and to give the air conditioning a fighting chance to keep it cool inside despite the dreadfully hot and humid summer afternoon outside.

He said he was unshakably confident in his belief that there is a heaven, because he was convinced we all were already living out our life sentences in hell.

I think on that often. By my birth alone, a very ancient covenant sealed my fate. Hell is my destiny.

I’ve seen things. Done things. Witnessed things. Terrible things. Horrible things. Cruel things. Unspeakable things. There is no redemption. There can be no hope. There will be no reprieve.

Perhaps he was right. How do we know we aren’t already in Hell?

Ghost of Darkness

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven. – John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667

I sat quietly on the glider on my back porch, sipping the shitty tasting contents of a can of Black Bay Brewing Company's Steelhead Lager. Black Bay Brewing Company was pretentious enough to rob the noble fish names of the salmon that fought their way from the Atlantic and up into the Great Lakes. Steelhead. Coho. Chinook. Stupid shit like that.

Black Bay’s Steelhead at least had a name that sounded like a badass motherfucker. Black Bay Brewing Company, Dark Harbor, Michigan. Steelhead Lager. Those names sounded like they could kick some ass and come back demanding seconds. What could be manlier? Steelhead was a name built for a road-hardened biker that had served hard time cooking meth in Death Valley, and had the cajones to single-handedly fist-fuck a pissed-off two-thousand pound bull on a five-dollar bet. Hard core rock-n-roll, right? You’d be nuts to fuck with him. Don’t even look at him cockeyed. Steelhead, and don't you fucking forget it.

I was pissed that they suckered me into buying some of their shitty beer, though. Cocksuckers. That’s ten bucks that I could have wasted on beer that can’t even bother to spell light right; but at least it wouldn’t have tasted like it dripped out of the crotch of a ten -dollar whore the night all the cash assistance comes in on the bridge card accounts. For the welfare and/or Michigander illiterate, Michigan pays welfare benefits like food stamps and cash assistance on a credit card with a PIN that features a picture of the Mackinac Bridge, hence the name Bridge Card. The Mackinac Bridge connects the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula, or the U.P, as in land of the yoopers. Also as in land of pasties. Don’t ask if you don’t know what pasties are. If you must try one, no, they are not donuts. Yes, you want gravy, because it’s like a dried-out turd of a potpie.

The evening crickets chirped in my backyard, gaining their confidence and their voices as the gloaming deepened, indifferent to the vague rumbling of thunder rolling in the distant west out beyond the harbor, beyond Black Bay, and over the indifferent rolling waves of Lake Michigan. Under the storm, though, the winds would be whipping the lake into a treacherous frenzy that the saltiest and hardiest of sailors would shudder to witness; the Great Lakes have always been cold-hearted, vicious, relentless, and unforgiving.

Our house was on the southeast side of Dark Harbor, not far from the main highway that runs north and south. This particular hot and humid August evening was shifting through a soft and slow transition between day and night. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ears as they hovered in a shifting cloud, eager to land, attracted by the heat that baked through the sweat that rolled off my brow. Normally the high-pitched whine would annoy me, but I ignored them. My shirt hung on me, damp and thick from the humidity and the sweat. Michigan was a monstrous swampland, and humidity is omnipresent in all seasons, amplifying the heat of summer, and putting sharp, biting teeth into the chill of winter. You can’t escape water; it’s everywhere. Endless lakes, streams, and swamps. You want water? Punch a well. Where doesn’t matter too fucking much. If you have to go 200 feet down to hit water, you’re either unlucky or you’re an idiot. Don’t punch a well from the top of a hill, fuckstick.

At the back edge of the lawn in the backyard, the tangled and forbidding undergrowth of bushes blended into the trees of the dark woods behind it. My children’s toys were scattered throughout the yard, their silhouettes were dissolving into amorphous shapes in the grass, exotic and threatening at the same time. The children’s personal daytime playground had slipped sideways within reality, leaving behind ghosts and shifting shadows. I could almost hear the faint echoes of innocent laughter from the children’s daytime romp, and I could almost hear echoes of my own childhood. Almost.

Through the torn and dirty screen in the open and grease-streaked kitchen window behind me, I heard the low voices on the television drifting out of the living room, where I knew my children were sprawled out, blurry eyed and ready for sleep after a hard day of playing in the yard. I felt a low sense of dread, wondering about the ill mood my wife was in, and a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me about how bad things had become between Trish and me. The reproachful looks from dinner were still very much on my mind, and I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind again and tried to return to the peacefulness of nightfall.

We were on the downhill slope of a marriage. Trish and I were trapped in the ‘I’m always a fucking asshole/she’s always a life-sucking bitch’ downward death-spiral, and I felt powerless to stop it. A supernova blow-up was rushing headlong forward towards us, relentless, terrible, and inevitable, like a train wreck where the engineer had already thrown the lever on the brakes and the only other thing left to do was put your head between your knees, pucker up, and kiss your fucking ass goodbye. The rest was inertia at work. With heavy paraphrasing, Newton’s First Law, is to wit: Inertia is an ice-cold heartless cock-knocking relentless fucking bitch. Don’t believe me? It’s easy to test. Set your cruise next time you’re blasting along at 85 mph on the freeway and then step out of your car. That’s inertia, up close and personal, motherfucker.

To defuse the brewing situation with Trish, I had escaped out here, hoping it would release enough of the building tension to delay the impending outburst, at least for a little while. Imploding relationships have their own relentless inertia. The hate, the vitriol, was predictable and pointless. We had done it all before, but it seemed like we were destined to repeat the arguments every day, like a listless stage production. Act 3, scene 2. She enters stage left…

Even on days where we didn’t argue the tension simmered, seething and hot, threatening to boil just beneath the surface, a festering sore that would never heal. Even when we weren’t bickering with each other and just let the tension build, I still argued with her continuously within the confines of my mind. In reality, we kept having the same arguments, full of the same accusations, recycling the same recriminations with the same inevitable results. If I couldn’t prevent the argument, perhaps delay was possible, and so here I was avoiding her, sitting and staring into the backyard.

The world’s drift into twilight was entrancing, and I needed the escape and reprieve. Staring had the interesting effect of almost revealing the world beneath, as though reality was a veneer worn thin from hard use. It was as though the toys in the backyard were molting, shedding their deceptive shrouds of plastic, revealing the horrid deformities that had been hidden within.

I felt as if the toys knew that I was watching, and would only continue morphing into hellish objects when I wasn’t looking. Every time I glanced away, I swore I saw them move at the peripheral edge of my vision, malignant and aware. I was on edge, yet peaceful. A delicate balance, masterful in its elegance, a razor's edge of fine balance. I felt the hair on the back of my neck almost crawling, as though preternatural, ghostly fingers were hovering, its dark and malignant energy thrumming millimeters away, wanting, but not quite daring to contact me.

Perhaps the spirit was wishing that it could force me to turn to watch the discarded toy’s painful, liquid, and slow transformation into artifacts of the pit. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, pulled toward that negative energy; my skin crawling as though lightning were about to strike. I remained calm. My breathing was slow and regular. When I glanced back at the shape-shifting toys, their slow, black, and oozing movement ceased, yet always at the edge of my vision, I could detect the faintest movement from another toy’s molt into rot, shifting, and wriggling. As soon as I looked in that direction, it would stop, dark, breathing, and aware—resentful and hating, a pulsing putrescence—while another object started shifting elsewhere in the yard.

This singular moment was dark and magical. It was as though time had become soft, flexible, a fluid that could be stretched and manipulated through the force of will. Each second seemed slower than the last. I felt buoyant and peaceful, yet so alive. My problems, my stresses, my worries were inconsequential. They are so rare, these moments of almost perfect clarity.

It was as though I knew and understood the true meaning of life, yet there was no one there to understand and receive the wisdom. The clarity of expression danced at the forefront of thought in anticipation of a final release. It was if now suddenly I could speak, if only someone could listen.

It would pass, though. Time would resume its normal passage, and the understanding would finally retreat, restrained again, unknown and muted. Each moment must be savored, enjoyed like a delicate dessert prepared by a master chef. Each bite, each moment was divine, exquisite, poignant, yet sad.

A harsh stuttering coughing sound came from my left, yet I was not startled. I turned to face the noise coming from my neighbor’s yard. A loud, stuttering hiss undercut the cough, and the noise settled into a softer staccato Shrup! Shrup! Shrup! A rabbit bolted in fright from under the lilac bushes that separated my yard from my neighbor’s, his frantic, zigzagging flee of fright frenzied yet silent, his grey form disappearing into the gloom at the far edge of my lawn. I realized the neighbor must have installed a timer on his lawn sprinkler.

On my right, I heard the soft stuttering buzz of the neighbors’ mercury vapor light attempting to struggle into life on the front of their garage. The light was faint, and I turned to watch, fascinated, as each second struggled by. The light stayed on, tenuous at first. The light gained strength, and before long, the first moth flitted around the light, attracted by powerful and ancient instincts it was helpless to resist, drawn towards the light.

In the distance, I also heard a dog’s pitiful and lonely barking, closer to the highway to the east that heads north towards Traverse City, but even this didn’t disrupt my feeling of tranquility. Often, late at night, when only the deepest of fellow insomniacs would be awake, when I could detect the faint and imperceptible lightening of the entire night sky that signaled the approach of dawn, I would hear this dog’s lonesome desperate bark through the open window of our bedroom. Bizarrely, I felt a kinship with this canine that I had never seen, and probably never would. Perhaps he, like I, had stared into the dark long enough, and was protesting the shapes that wouldn’t stop moving and approaching within that darkness.

The depths of insomnia, zero dark thirty, is the time of day where I contemplate that night eleven years ago, and wonder what happened. What part did I play? How much like my father am I? So many unanswered questions. The answers were locked inside my head. Is the truth so horrific that even I didn’t want to face it? The horrors were so infamous that they hit the national tabloids like a blaze, and the nation guzzled it down and screamed for free refills. While I was still in the hospital afterwards, I quietly became someone else, and due to the ongoing investigation, the court records were sealed. My privacy was all I had left, and I had treated that privacy like gold. Not even Trish knew about that night. Disassociation, baby.

Another kamikaze moth joined the first’s relentless attack on the harsh blue light of the neighbor’s mercury vapor lamp. A slight and intermittent breeze began to stir the leaves, and the vague rumblings of the approaching storm out over Lake Michigan became more ominous and insistent.

A dark, striped cat pounced onto the porch steps, its queer yellowish-green eyes an unreadable alien ocean of knowledge, unblinking, its head pivoting as it sauntered across the top step.

I am not fond of cats. My car sports several bumper stickers, with perennial favorites such as Fuck censorship! which I thought paired rather nicely with the one on the cheap espresso maker in the house that asserted that we should Fuck Decaf! Of more direct relevance, the car also bears a bumper sticker that proclaimed, I love cats, they taste like chicken, right next to the anti-vegetarian bumper sticker that suggests that, There’s room on this planet for all God’s creatures. Right next to the mashed potatoes. This furry feline hadn’t perused my bumper stickers as it passed the car in the driveway, or hadn’t given a sweet fuck. It sat on the top step of the porch, and glared at me. I returned its gaze, and watched him in return. The cat's gaze was constant, and it still hadn’t blinked.

I felt a sense of déjà vu. A small rumbling cloud of uneasiness drifted through my mind, but I dismissed it. I shouldn’t have dismissed my misgivings—his appearance was just the tip of an iceberg that I didn’t want to see. The rest of the story lurked below the murky waters of my memory, and it was tremendous, terrible, and important. In retrospect, I should have been terrified of that fuzz-ball’s appearance, but instead, I looked at him uneasily and wished he would go away. Memory is amazingly elastic, and bizarrely selective. Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt, motherfucker.

Denial’s awe-inspiring power lies in misdirection, and my mind’s self-protection mechanism labeled that cocksucking cat as one of our neighbor’s fucking flea-bitten pests. I knew I could recognize most of the neighbors’ animals on sight, but I couldn’t cough up the name of the bastard that owned this skanky fuzz-ball. It was familiar to me, but I couldn’t place the little bastard to an owner. Warning bells started ringing in my head again, but why should I be afraid of a god-forsaken ten-pound fleabag?

The cat didn’t mewl; it didn’t twine itself around in circles around my legs, demanding attention. Instead, it looked away, disinterested in me, and started washing its face with its swipes of its paw. I gave up trying to figure out whose fucking cat it was. The cat was familiar to me, but I couldn’t recall why. I assumed it wasn’t important, but I was wrong. Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.

I idly considered tossing my now empty beer-can at him. The cat paused, with one paw over its twitching ear, and peered at me, as if it could read my thoughts. At least the cat wasn’t making a nuisance of itself, like the orange and white hell-fire that belonged to Mrs. Cranston who lived two doors down. That nosy old biddy’s puss liked to tear shingles off the roof of my garage; I’m sure just for the pure amusement factor of pissing me off. My friend Mike Allister’s cat demands attention from anyone who went anywhere near it. If you stopped petting the goddamned thing, it would bite and claw at you until you resumed giving it the attention it demanded. I’ve restrained myself from choking the living shit out of that little fuckstick on several occasions. Less out of respect for that asshole cat’s demands, and more out of respect for Mike. Of course, my loyalty to Mike might also be misplaced. However, since the cat on my porch wasn’t being a pest, I decided to leave it alone. The cat cocked its head sideways, then glanced away contemptuously, as if to say, "Toss a beer can at me? I don’t think so, jackass," before it resumed preening itself.

That strange calm feeling crept back over me as I sat on my porch watching the twilight transition. The cat. The approaching thunderstorm. The shape shifting toys in the backyard. They all were irrelevant, yet fascinating at the same time.

The cat stood up and stretched in one fluid motion, then took a few steps. It glanced over its shoulder, and then took a few more tentative steps. It stopped again, and looked back at me for several seconds. Then it sat, and stared at me again, mewing. It wanted me to follow him. "Fuck it. Why not?" I thought.

I stood, and the cat padded a few more steps away, and turned to see if I was following yet.

A cool breeze stirred, a refreshing sharp edge that cut through the stifling humidity and heat that still lingered from the hot, thick, hazy day. The vague whisper of the leaves rustling in the woods seemed to call to me, and I stepped off the deck into the underworld of my backyard. The step down felt pivotal, final, somehow. Perhaps the first step on what was going to be a very long journey. Satisfied that I was following him, the cat bounded into the dimness of the backyard. It disappeared into the grey noise of twilight, blending into the gloom.

I heard the alien howl of semi-truck tires prowling down the highway in the east off to my right. I walked deeper into the backyard, the soft hum of mosquitoes buzzing around me. I didn’t see where the cat went until it moved again. The cat, which had laid down into the overgrown grass, stood up again, and my eyes focused on the cat’s outline. It was like a strange version of Where’s Waldo? Waldo is a fuck of a lot easier to find when he moves, it. The human eye and brain are adept at finding and spotting movement. The cat slid deeper into the gloom again, and I followed.

I glanced back at the neighbor’s mercury vapor light as a dark shape of a bat swooped to feed on the swarm of moths and other bugs that were blindly and madly worshipping the bluish-silver light of the mercury vapor light. The harsh glare of the light destroyed my night vision, and I could see almost nothing as I glanced back into the veiled darkness of my deep shadows of my backyard. If the cat weren’t distancing himself a few paces in front of me, I would have stepped on the little bastard.

As my night vision recovered, I saw the amorphous shapes emerging from the background noise of the deepening twilight. I saw the shape of a plastic tricycle off to my left from the edges of my vision. I glanced at it and it dissolved into the background again, too dim to see when I looked at it directly yet. As soon as I looked away, I could see it again at the periphery of vision.

I didn’t know it, but I would never walk here again. This was my last communion with summer twilight in my backyard. I remember it well, and I still long for this one dark and peaceful moment in time, this one shining moment of perfection, the lingering humidity from the heat of the day, the sharp breeze with cool fingers that smelled of ozone and promised rain, and the soft rumbles of thunder in the distance. I knew a bleak and restful peace in that one moment. I was balanced between worlds, belonging to all of them and none of them, and that was as it should be. Everything would be taken away from me, but I still cherish the memory of that single moment, my little piece of Zen.

The cat, however, represents part of the destruction of all that. You’ll see why I hate that fucking cat. I should have killed that cat. If nothing else, the cat represents knowledge of all that lies above, and all that lies beneath. Then again, perhaps that’s just misdirected anger. The Egyptians held them in special regard. Perhaps I should have done the same?

Maybe I had killed the little bastard, once, long ago, and the little fucktard was only on life number three or four. I don’t know, but I know I hate that cat. Some cats bring you dead mice. It’s almost funny in a way. They show their admiration, loyalty, and dedication to you by sacrificing small furry rodents and presenting them as gifts. All hail the master! This cat brought me something far more terrible, horrific, and final. I tried to forget, and then I didn’t remember soon enough. The real question, though, is did the cat have any choice? Was the cat simply playing out his part in fate?

This cat didn’t bring me sacrificial rodents. It turns out that seeing the little fuckwit is bad news. We have a love/hate relationship now. He loves to torture me, and I hate the furry bastard. If only I had remembered where I had seen that cat before, I might never have followed the little shit into the backyard. I should have run, from him, from Trish, from everything. Either way, it is irrelevant now.

His fate was to lead me into the backyard; my fate was to follow him. Fate’s funny that way. We call it free will, but I don’t know if I ever actually had a choice. As Einstein once wanted to know, did God have any choice in creating the universe? I suspect that he didn’t. Blasphemy perhaps, but that question worries me. Do you realize how truly frightening the implications would be, what it means, if God didn’t have a choice?

I stopped my slow walk through the backyard; staring at the strange outline where I knew the children’s swing set was. From where I stood, it looked like a bizarre contraption of torture, raised and primed from the depths of suffering, stained with shit and bile, crusted with blood and maggot-infested rotting flesh, yet the chains and bindings were always strong and ready for use. If I walked closer, the rack of pain would disguise itself as just an innocent slide again. The rusty, barbed, and hooked chains would conceal themselves as supports for swings. I squinted, trying to find the cat again before he gave away his position with movement, and instead saw a figure leaning against the rack/slide. I couldn’t tell who it was, only that this person was wearing a hat. The soft red light of a cigarette glowed in his left hand by his side.

The cat was nowhere in sight. Nowadays, I’d strangle the little fucker if it would do any good. However, I know it wouldn’t change anything. I have glimpsed worse. Worse has caressed me with its bony, cold, dead fingers. Maybe having the cat is better. Maybe other revenants would like to lead me. Something from a deeper, more personal, more intimate, more dangerous level. Something that may never let me go. That’s making the assumption, holding on to the hope, that the cat may one day let me go, though.

I stepped closer to the slide, watching him. I stopped when I could discern that it was an older gentleman, dressed in a dark business suit. He also wore a dark hat, with a narrow brim. The man watched me the entire time, silent. He lifted his left hand in front of his face, and the cigarette flared, highlighting his lined, weathered, and aged face in a brief harsh red glow. His features were familiar, yet sad and harsh at the same time.

I stood still, watching him. The tranquil feeling lingered within me, and I felt neither fear nor anger towards this trespasser. I waited, listening to the strengthening rumbles of the approaching storm. The flickers of lightning were backlighting the sky now. It was much closer; I felt the resonant rolling bass of the thunder in the air and through my feet. I still felt light and buoyant, the lingering effects of the peaceful feeling of the magic of twilight. I knew he would soon speak. The man seemed deep in thought as he regarded me. I waited patiently from a few feet away, breathing slowly and deeply as I watched him.

The deepening twilight with the intermittent lightning strobes of the approaching storm muted the soft chirps of the crickets somehow—as though they had slipped sideways with the rest of the backyard into the underworld of the gloaming—the in between of shadows. The crickets were still there, but the sound was flat, almost deadened—as though they were halfway dissolved and between worlds. Even the barking dog had taken on a toneless and compressed quality, as though heard through a tinny old-fashioned land phone line. The strengthening breeze that was stirring the leaves was no longer caressing me with its chilly and ghostly fingers with any insistence.

The cigarette flared again. I could hear the soft exhale, though I couldn’t see the smoke. The man flicked the cigarette; sending a small shower of sparks that winked out before reaching the ground.

You never remembered. His voice was a familiar, deep baritone. He stared for a few seconds before pointing at me with the hand holding the cigarette. That and you have no idea what I’m talking about.

I shook my head. The rumble of thunder from the approaching storm had also taken on a tinny quality, and the breeze was strengthening, rustling the leaves—yet the breeze didn't touch my skin.

The man unfolded his arms, and stared at his hands for a moment. After a few moments, he looked back up at me. His bored in on me, as though he was looking inside of me, before speaking again. His face contorted, experiencing a range of emotions. He started to speak, and then stopped. I watched him, waiting for him to decide what he wanted to say. He sighed, and looked away.

Nope. You don’t know, and now I fear it’s far too late.

I glanced back towards the house. I could see the outline of my wife in the kitchen window. I looked back at the gentleman, and I realized who he was, although it wasn’t possible. I was still flying high on the peaceful feeling, and I knew that the impossible was true with absolute conviction. Some people could play a piano without lessons. Some could multiply extremely large numbers in their head. Sometimes I just knew things I had no way and no business of knowing.

I could scare people with it sometimes. Psychic, warlock, or otherwise, when I knew, I knew. It was creepy, but there was jack shit I could do about it. There was no mistaking when it happened. When I knew something that was impossible to know, it’s as if a forty-watt light bulb inside your head is suddenly putting out ten-thousand watts of power and yet it didn’t blow out. The needles slam sideways to overload, the light drowns out everything else, and you know you’ve been blasted a message from somewhere other than Western-fucking-Union that defies conventional explanation. A stupid rhyme flitted across my thoughts. Eenie-meanie-mienie-moe, can anybody hear my radio? Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum. Loud and clear with a little hum. Now where the fuck did that come from? Sigh.

I stared back at him. It’s never too late.

His gaze held me, even and sad. It was too late three millenniums ago. You’ll find out soon enough. All else is aftermath, isn’t it? So it is writ.

I stepped closer to him. The peaceful feeling persisted, yet I felt out of place. I was in the alien landscape of my backyard, having a strange conversation with my dead grandfather. I had never met him before. He had died long before I was around. I knew that this conversation was impossible. He was dead; I was not. I may have problems with psychological stability, and this falls under the category of being loony-fucking-tunes, but I had no doubts about who the fuck he was. This wasn’t somebody who looked remarkably like him. This wasn’t a relative of him. This was him.

I watched him, patient. My heartbeat was steady; my breathing was steady and regular. I felt I should have been panicking, yelling, or losing my temper, but I didn’t. Either I had lost my goddamned mind, or I was having a conversation with my dead grandfather. Either possibility was outside the realm of normal and rational thinking. Either prospect should have frightened me, yet the tranquil feeling flowed through