Darkness Devours

Part 7

Mark gawked at the fresh blood running down his hand, muttering to himself.  "I couldn't... I didn't... Matt saw you. I was with Ken when you had Matt".  Dark pulled Mark's wrist closer to his face, letting his fangs trace across the vein of Mark's wrist.  At first Mark tried not to focus on how sensual the gesture was... but he became transfixed when Dark's fangs came in contact with the blood running down his wrist.  The moment the blood touched the end on Dark's fangs in was siphoned up like water to a straw.  Dark's eyes drifted to look at him, as he casually answered back.  "Are you sure? Shall I tell you? Matt wasn't looking at you on the floor... he was looking at the baseball bat you were holding. I had managed to switch you out of here for a brief time".  Dark's tongue slid out from between his fangs to lick up the blood from Mark's palm.  Shaking his head in disbelief, Mark countered back uneasily.  "No. Explain Ken. You had Matt downstairs somewhere, when Ken helped me up in the bedroom".  Dark chuckled softly, his warm breath tickling the tips of Mark's fingers, when he replied.  "If I recall... you spent a good amount of time silent on the floor looking for me. It was even sooo dark... ever think you left the room and came back"?  Mark jerked his hand out of Dark's hand, rising up onto his elbows as snapped back.  "You're lying"!  Dark moved closer over him on all fours, until their faces were only and inch or two away.  Flashing a fanged grin, Dark whispered playfully.  "You seem so sure. Want me to show you"?

Mark leaned away from Dark suddenly very uneasy as a dark haze started to cluster around Dark's outline like black smoke.  Dark didn't move or loose that fanged grin, as a low rumble started to come from his chest.  Growing in volume until Mark realized that Dark was growling at him.  The sound was chilling Mark to the bone.  Sending goosebumps down his arms that told every fiber of his being to run.  There was no doubt in Mark's mind that Dark was more monster than man.  Dark suddenly lurched out at him with a loud inhuman roar that made Mark drop back against the floor in surprised.  Staying sprawled upon the floor, Mark tried to calm his heart down.  Dark however, slowly climbed to his feet stretching.  Mark forced himself to climb to his feet, snapping back.  "What the fuck! I thought you were going to show me how you switched"?  Dark cracked his knuckles in turn, before taking Mark by the shoulders and spinning him to face the mirror on the wall.  Leaning over Mark's shoulder, Dark whispered smugly.  "Weren't you paying attention"?  Mark stared blankly at the mirror.  He could see himself leaning over someone... that wasn't there.  'He' wasn't there.  Dark straightened up, slapping him on the back as he moved away, adding happily over his shoulder.  "Don't worry. It's not permanent... yet". 

Mark whipped around to yell at Dark as he was walking away.  "What did you do to me"?!  Dark reached the door that Felix had run into.  Smirking back down the hall to Mark and he told him amused.  "Consider yourself little more than a ghost".  With a deep dark chuckle, Dark entered the room and out of sight.  Mark shook his head in disbelief, then gasped in shock.  The vase he had thrown at Dark's back was lying in shattered pieces at the far end of the hall... much farther then he had hit Dark.  Did Dark only let him believe he had hit him with it?  Turning to look at the railing he had hit Dark with earlier, he saw it still intact... but coated in blood.  He didn't know how much good it would do, but he bent down to try and pick it up.  Before his hand even touched it a flash of memory came to him.  Ryan shakily staggered up the stairs, holding his bleeding shoulder and reaching out his free hand as he tentatively told him.  "Mark? Put the gun down. We're your friends. What are you doing, man"?  Mark saw himself... no Dark, drop the gun.  Ryan smirked a little in relief, telling him... Dark.  "It's alright, man. We'll get through all this".  Mark watched Dark lower slowly to the ground like he was feeling the guilt... only to grab the broken railing and swing it hard at Ryan's face.  This time Ryan tumbled down the stairs, and his painful groans at the bottom rang all to familiar in Mark's mind.  Jerking away from the bloody rail and the memory, Mark began to hyperventilate. 

The very idea that some of his memories were altered or missing was making Mark lightheaded.  The air in this dusty house felt suddenly thick and heavy.  The sharp painful scream that Mark recognized as Felix's, jarred him out of his haze and he ran for the bedroom door.  Only just as he reached the door, Felix fell halfway out of the room.  His mouth was spewing endlessly amounts of dark blood as he gurgled out moans and desperately clawed at the floor with bloody hands.  Mark quickly bent down to take Felix's outstretched hand without a moments hesitation.  To his own bewilderment, his hand grabbed Felix's wrist and in that brief moment Felix flinched searching the area with bloodshot eyes.  He had felt Mark... but he couldn't see Mark.  Mark's breath caught in his throat, hesitating.  In that moment of hesitation, Felix let out another agonizing scream of pain mere seconds before being yanked back into the bedroom.  Leaving a smeared bloody trail along the floor and into the room.  Mark fumbled along the floor, trying to snatch Felix's hand again... only to stop and look up at the figure kneeling over Felix's limp body.  Dark was kneeling on Felix's body like a hunter with his trophy, holding the handle to a large bowie knife that was impaled deep in Felix's back.  Tears started to brim Mark's eyes as he watched Dark twist the knife lodged in Felix.  Dark didn't even seem to know, or care that he was there.  Jerking the knife out, Dark forced his hand into hole he had made in Felix's flesh, pulling out Felix's heart.  Mark swallowed down the bile that was threatening to come out.  Dark observed the heart in his hand a second, before his fangs extended and he plunged them into the bleeding heart.  Mark shut his eyes in reluctant defeat, feeling his tears run out the corners of his eyes.  To Be Continued...