The Dark Mist

Hi Marjorie!

                                                                                                  19

Marjorie frowned as she lay on her couch with a good book in her hands. Well, a good book according to her. Stephen King was always a good person to read. She frowned again when she heard the sound. Some idiot outside was revving their motorcycle. She heard motorcycles before but this one was overdoing it. She wanted to open her window and yell at the driver but the motorcycle stopped revving and then it was quiet again. She sighed with relief and picked up her cup of tea and took a sip. There was nothing like laying on a couch on your night off and reading a good book. There was a knock on her door. She wondered if she could just pretend not to be home but she realized her light was on. She sighed, marked her place, set her book on the coffee table, walked to the door, opened it and her jaw dropped. "Becca!"

"Surprise," said Becca smiling. Becca was standing there in some leather outfit and she had a helmet in her hand. A helmet?

"Please don't tell me that was your motorcycle I was hearing?"

"Sorry, I was trying to get your attention. May I come in?"

"May I come in? Of course you can come in silly, this is your place too! Sit down, sit down, can I get you anything. A cup of tea?"

"Sure," said Becca, "I'll take a cup of tea."

Marjorie took a cup out of the cupboard and poured Becca a cup of tea. "Do you take sugar?"

"Just one is fine."

Marjorie put a sugar cube in the tea, gave it a stir and handed it to Becca. Becca followed Marjorie to the couch where they both sat at opposite ends, turned to face each other. "Wow, it's so good to see you, so unexpected too. You should've called. I could've picked you up from the airport or the bus station, or, wait, how did you get here anyway?"

"Took a cab."

"A cab??"

"Yeah," said Becca, "I'll mention that later."

"Right okay, so you must be exhausted. Where's your luggage?"

"At the hotel."

"Becca! You know you can stay here!"

"I know," said Becca sighing. "This is so hard."

"What is it?"

"Okay, well, I got in Monday."

"That was four days ago?" Marjorie sat up and crossed her legs on the couch and took a sip of her tea. "Is everything okay?"

Becca sighed. "Well, no. Part of the reason I'm here. You told me once that whenever I was ready I could talk about my past."

"I remember," said Marjorie smiling. "I think it was after you got a fake ID, somehow disabled the cameras, and manage to get 700,000 dollars out of a hotel being under 21, if I remember correctly?"

"That's right."

"Wow." Marjorie ran a hand through her hair. "I mean I did say whenever you were ready but I don't know if I'm ready, I mean I had no idea you were in town."

"I'm so sorry it has to be like this. I should've given you a heads up or something."

Marjorie shook her head. "No, I said anytime and I meant it." Marjorie took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Okay, what I'm about to tell you, you can't tell to a living soul. Except David, but keep it strictly between the two of you. It's a matter of life or death, and before you get all excited, you'll understand why when I'm done." Becca saw Marjorie nod so she continued. "I was born out of town, just up the way past the cabins. I was born in a compound. This compound is what we call it in layman's terms, but in formal terms it is The Fortress of the Soldiers of Darkness. We, I guess I should say we, are a group of soldiers. Our mission is to create chaos. When things get too good, too nice, too peaceful, that is when we come in. Sometimes we are called, other times we take it upon ourselves."