The Terror #wattys2017 #TNTHorrorContest

Seven....The Blackness

Time stopped...

        There was never and will never be again, a blackness like that, this side of death. It happened so fast and so unexpectedly that the fear did not immediately strike.  Time stopped, my mind stopped, as if I was a robot and someone hit the switch to my perceptions and they went out with a blink. I could hear nothing, feel nothing, see nothing and there was no emotion. I was a bystander to myself, unable to do anything but watch as the Terror began to grow.  

        There were two parts of me, the part that watches and the part that reacts.  I could feel my heart pound from somewhere down low, a dis- attached sound , almost a silent echo. " Bump bumpo bump bump." Just me in the blackness, heart beat slowly rising, getting closer and closer to the part that hears. I began to make out small ornaments oscillating, electrically powered floaters crossed my eyes, teeny tiny multicolored neon dots following each other in the bleak blackness,  a dancing electric centipede, then squiggly little lines like twisted thread jerking about in a life-like fashion.

        Way back in the distance I heard someone whaling, screaming! It was a desperate sound, like a mad man you could hear on a Pink Floyd album "I know I'm mad, I've always been mad."  Only those weren't the words and it wasn't Pink Floyd.  Someone was screaming 

"TURN ON THE LIGHT'S, TURN ON THE LIGHTS MUTHERFUCKER, TURN ON THE LIGHTS!"

        The sound of the voice, the colors in my eyes, the sound of the beating heart louder and louder in my ears, Faster and faster the heartbeat went, stronger and stronger until it was no longer a sound but a feeling, a feeling that I had gone fucking mad. 

        The scream closer and closer,

        "THE LIGHTS, THE LIGHTS, TURN ON THE FUCKING LIGHTS!!!"

        When the lights blinked on I realized the voice screaming was... mine. I was scraping at my eyes trying to pry them open to find the light, my nails caused bleeding from my eyelids and I was crying, crying as I didn't even know was possible so quickly, so so quickly. Dale reached over grabbed my arm, shaking me saying,

        "It was just a joke, it was just a joke", trying to convince me there was no harm intended.

        I repelled from his touch and screamed again! up against the door panel.

        "Don't, just don't!" I said.

        That part that watched was still in the background,  paying close attention to the part that was freaking out, silently observing, trying to understand. Now the lights were on I could see we were surrounded by trees and boulders, the boulders looked like giant coiled snakes as the trees and bushes breathed and swayed in headlight glow. Presently I heard the chick singing on Dark Side of the Moon and I stopped screaming.

        I felt all the emotion she was feeling as the music flowed through me. I looked to Dale and it was as if there was a camera in my head and it saw him as a concerned, apologetic and loving human who had my best interest at heart.  I looked at him with my mouth agape and asked,

        "Is that what peaking is?"

Steve broke out laughing in the back seat and spit his Kool out; which of course made him laugh even more. Then Dale paused looking at me with his dazzling blue eyes, reached up and turned on the dome light. That was a stark hard reality check, everything seeming just a little TOO real. I wiped the tears from my eyes as the music played, Steve still giggling in the back ruffling my hair like a big brother. 

Then it was Dales turn to break out laughing, pointing at me saying, "Yeah little brother, that's most definitely peaking! "And I was laughing too as he rolled the Merc down the hill to the fire road that took as to Vogle Flats. 

Carrying on like a bunch of idiots, rattle trapping in the Merc, pipes through broken mufflers and Pink Floyd making it even more magic than possible. We pulled up near the stream and we sang along. We could hear the water gurgling outside and Dale turned the key That changed our reality again.