Sleep Less In Seattle

The stories of dreary Seattle, Washington simply does not credit the location with how truly gloomy it is. Seemingly constant storms, with an ever-present rain that ranges from a light mist to a total downpour and a sense of oppression that is almost indescribably terrifying, is the best way I can think to describe the city, and this particular point in time was no different.
       You see, for Kurtus Grohlter, this new place was the setting of every horror movie he had ever seen. Kurt was from Florida, (Clearwater to be exact), and up until two weeks before now, he always enjoyed living. Perhaps it was only the mild state of sadness he had due to leaving his childhood friends behind or the fact that he was so far inland with no place to surf, but since the move, Kurt had experienced a growing state of depression. Back home in Florida, Kurt had always fit in. He was top of his class, top of the social hierarchy that is present in every high school setting, at the pinnacle of his pre-adult life. As soon as his father passed away, his life had done a complete turn-around, and not for the better.
       He could still remember it as though it were yesterday, the time when his mother approached him and shattered any semblance of safety and security he had ever felt. It had been a mild summer morning, and he and his friends had been out surfing at the beach as usual. Everything had gone fantastic up to that point, up until they started towards their usual hangout spot, the Smoothie Shack. They were some distance away, but even from where he was standing Kurt could see his mother's white Dodge Challenger parked nearby. "What's the deal, man?" Chris asked. Kurt and Chris had been best friends since preschool. "No idea. This is weird." Kurt mumbled, although his mind was miles away. What reason could warrant his mother to come here, to their most sacred spot? She knew he was going out surfing, so did he do something wrong? Was there bad weather in the forecast? "I'll be right back guys." Kurt began jogging, half-dazed, to the Smoothie Shack, where he could now see his mother standing nearby. As he approached, he noticed something was off: his mother was still dressed for work, but she looked like a train wreck. Her hair was a mess, her makeup was running, her jacket was unbuttoned. "Mom, what's going on? Are you okay? Spill." He said as he came to a stop nearby. She looked at him, but her blotchy eyes were miles away. Finally, after an unsettling silence, she spoke. "Kurt, he's gone. He's gone. He's gone." She just kept repeating it, and each time she said it was like a knife being driven through his back. No, worse than that. Kurt wished it were a knife because this was a complete nightmare. His stomach dropped, and he fell to his knees. Just those two words completely wrecked everything he had ever known, and little did he know that it was at this point, that the beginning of the end had arrived.
A year prior, Kurt's father, Jonathan, had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, only expected to live a short six months. Six months came and went, and with each extra month, Jonathan seemed to get a little stronger. He had always been the rock in Kurt's life, the calm before the storm, and Kurtus never actually got the closure of saying goodbye, of telling him how much he loved him. The fact that he never would is what drove the nail in the coffin, and what had haunted the young man ever since. After a couple of weeks, his mother approached him with more utterly fantastic news: They were moving to Seattle for a while, just to getaway. "Clearwater has too many memories for me, sweetie. I think this is just what we need." She exhaled a shaky breath. "Besides, I need to go home. My real home. I need to find myself again." Kurtus had no say of course, and so they boxed up their old lives and made the cross country trip, bringing them to this point.
He sat in his room, pondering all the events that had landed him here in this hellish place of soak and sorrow, listening to the constant drizzle that never seemed to end. Part of him believed he was responsible, that he could have done something to save his father. The majority of his thoughts were simply filled with total rage, rage at his father for leaving him here, putting him in this position. In a sudden burst of anger, Kurt punched a hole straight through the wall. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" he screamed, the raw emotion exploding from him like a knife through his chest. "Kurtus, are you awake still, honey?" his mother call from downstairs. "Yeah." he grumbled, rubbing his swelling hand. Why did she always feel the need to check in on him? Nothing annoyed him more. "I'm going to bed! Sleep good, sweetheart." Kurt only shrugged, a foolish thing to have done in hindsight. Then again, how was he to know that this night could be his last? He threw himself onto his bed and quickly fell into a restless sleep.
DING, DONG, DING! The antique clock on his wall showed 3 a.m, and Kurt's eyes grew wide. His heart pounding, body shaking with anticipation, he rushed to his window. "Come on, I know you're out there." He mumbled. Sure enough, the nightly routine that he had grown so accustomed to had started: The spectacle was about to begin. The storm had lifted to a drizzle, the streets still sopping wet from the downpour that had been assaulting the city for hours just moments ago. Like the rising tide, a blanket of fog came rolling out from every direction, covering the ground in its hazy shroud. Kurt smiled, knowing with his heart of hearts that the Stranger had arrived.     
          About two weeks after the move, around the time Kurt and his mother had finally started to settle into the house, he found himself becoming more and more restless. The nights grew longer and his resting hours fell drastically. He had acquired a seemingly morbid infatuation with the park across the road, with its dead trees and unkempt lawn, the rusted gate and crumbling stone wall surrounding it, the shadows concealing what was within. He hadn't found the courage to go adventuring there, but it was as though some dark, unseen force was pulling him to it. He couldn't resist. "Kurt, I don't ever want to catch you in that park. There's a dark history there, and the place has always given me the chills. It just feels... Evil." A grave warning given to him by his mother when she had noticed him looking in that direction, and one that he would most likely completely ignore. What did she know? In Kurt's eyes, his mother was a coward; She couldn't even live in Clearwater anymore because she was scared of the memories there. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He replied. Kurt didn't care how many murders or shady dealings aplenty had gone on there, to him the urban legends and horror stories were too enticing to not check out. The root of his fascination, however, went back to the first night he had spent in the new house: One of supernatural proportions.
        For him, the first night had been miserable because he hadn't yet accepted the fact that his old life was over, and that he was going to have to completely start anew. Kurt ended up not even nodding off until the dawn had come and gone. It was at 3 a.m that morning that the same cover of fog had rolled in, and the Stranger had risen like a shadow under the rusted arch that was the park's entrance. He was ever silent, ever watching, and seemingly a statue; to Kurt, he seemed almost like he was waiting on something. Just as soon as he was there, however, he would disappear before dawn, his foggy shroud the only evidence of him having been there. No matter what the Stranger truly was, be it a watchful guardian or silent killer, simply glancing over in his direction filled Kurtus with dread. He wore a dark cloak with the hood pulled up, and under the hood was a black, featureless void. The only notable feature the Stranger had was his burning emerald eyes. Along with the dread, the Stranger also instilled a sense of curiosity and wonder within Kurt that he had not felt since he was a very young boy. The image he saw through the window on this night chilled him to the bone, both literally and metaphorically, as the window had frosted and the temperature had seemingly dropped 20 degrees. Tonight the Stranger stood in the middle of the archway, framed by the rusted gate, arms outstretched horizontally, staring straight ahead... Right at Kurt's front door. His dark cloak seemed to meld with the shadows of the night, appearing almost like a fluid as it flowed with every little movement, as though they were ripples in a pond. Kurt couldn't tear his eyes away and simply stared at the monstrosity, infatuated. It was at that moment that the two emerald orbs turned upward, setting their gaze on the window and locking with Kurt.
        As Kurt stared into those eyes, he was overcome by a flood of images, foreign to his mind, and he knew they were induced by Him. Tears ran from his eyes as he saw shadowy figures with an air of evil about them, an unholy ritual in which a young girl was screaming in agony, her soul being offered up to the Dark Lord. His skull began to burn as he saw things gradually becoming more and more horrific; a boy shooting up an airport, soldiers in black terrorizing citizens in the streets, finally ending with a man who had been flayed alive, muttering a call for help as he hung loosely from a post.
          At this point, Kurt was in a cold sweat with an agonizing headache and his sanity a lick away from snapping. No matter if he closed his eyes, tried to imagine something else or think happier thoughts, the scenes of torture, of a hell unimaginably horrendous in a spectacular way remained in his head, all-seeing and ever-present. Suddenly, Kurt saw a flash of light and just like that, the flood of images ended. He was on his floor, his eyes puffy from tears wept and a throbbing in his forehead, there as a reminder that the experience he had just had was no dream, no work of dark imagination. Instead of screaming out and feeling the dread that any sane person would have, however, he was in a state of awestruck terror. What had just occurred? How did it happen? He jumped up and made his way back to the window, not expecting to see what was there. The Stranger was in the archway, but unlike Kurt had ever seen him.
          Standing there was an exact clone of Kurtus Grohlter, an evil smirk on his face, and emerald orbs in place of his eyes. Kurt felt his stomach drop, (not for the first time that night), and turned to hurl, unable to control the sudden sickness that washed over him. The Stranger Kurt was staring at the real Kurt, just as he had been before forcing the horrible slideshow into his mind, and suddenly Kurt could sense the true power of evil that he was dealing with. "What are you?" he said, more so to himself than to anyone in particular. As if he had heard, the Stranger Kurt smiled a big, toothy grin, and let out an inhuman shriek that would have curdled milk. Kurtus grabbed for his ears, as the pain from the shriek only made his headache worst. The Stranger then turned, and in a flash, he was back in the park, his cloak of fog following as though it were a loyal dog. He found himself breathing heavily again, and when he lowered his hands from his ears he saw that they were covered in blood.
       He was suddenly overcome with emotions, filled with a sense of courage, or perhaps blind stupidity, or both. The only thing Kurtus was sure of, was that he was going to find the Stranger, and he was going to get some answers. He grabbed his knife from the side table next to the bed, slid on his sneakers, and made for the front door. Without a second thought, Kurt crossed the street and walked right into the darkness of the park, prepared to confront the evil that had piqued his curiosity and terrorized him, all in just a few short hours. He slid the knife into his waistband, not about to go in "guns blazing", in case he could speak with the Stranger instead of fighting him.
        As he wandered, Kurt came upon the odd rock formation that locals had called the "round table", which the park had been built around so many years ago. Nobody knew if it was natural or manmade, but it was almost a perfect circle, flat on the top but with a crack straight through the middle. The image of the sacrificial ritual flashed into his head again, and he realized that he had seen this place before, in a time far in the past. Before long Kurt found himself  in center of the park, an oddly manicured glade in the middle of dense foliage and unkempt trees.
         The Stranger was nowhere to be seen, and he began to feel uneasy. "Come on, let's go! Come out!" The fog began to seep from every corner of the park. It rolled out from beneath the shrubbery, it came from the crack in the rock formation, from the treeline on the far side of the park. It wrapped around Kurt's ankles, and it was right then that he began to question whether or not he had made the right decision. He felt the temperature drop again, a drastic change that sent shivers up his spine and set his whole body to shaking uncontrollably. "God, I'm such an idiot. I shouldn't be out here." He said, and with that made to leave.... only to find that his feet were stuck in place. He had no control over them, and could not move. He was a bear in a trap, a fish in a net, a fool in some dark court. Tears began to flow again, as his courage completely abandoned him. Of course, young Kurtus could never have known that when you ask the Stranger to come out and play, you couldn't just abandon the game. He was in control now, and Kurt was just along for the ride. Kurt felt a presence in the shadows, and he lost all control of his bowels. He cried aloud, the impending evil too much for the adolescent to handle. Before he could cry out again, a fierce pain exploded from within. Kurt looked down, uncomprehending, staring at the blade of shade sticking out of his gut. Blood dripped from the cold, smoky black steel protruding from his stomach, and when Kurtus coughed blood bubbled up from within. The Stranger let out a hiss, slowly pulling the blade out and twisting it, to make it that much more agonizing. He should've passed out by this point, the blood loss being past the point of any normal human's capacity. Thoughts of his mother flashed through his mind, and he felt a pang of deep guilt within. He looked at the Stranger, in anger, and pain, as he shrieked again, piercing young Kurtus Grohlter three more times. "P-please. P-please, just end t-this. K-kill m-me!" Kurtus yelled, his gaze locked with the emerald orbs of the Stranger. The other just stared back, perhaps smiling in the shadow of his hood, perhaps contemplating mercy that he never gave, undoubtedly drinking in the suffering that he cherished so dearly. The Stranger thrived on fear, on pain, on death. This is what the Great One had created him for, gifted him with his terrible power to thrive in his dark machinations. A surge of energy from within that made his eyes blaze like fire, and he began to shift. As the final light lingered in young Kurtus Grohlter's eyes, he saw a horrific sight: the Stranger shifted and flowed and stretched until finally, his form had changed entirely. The Stranger smiled at Kurtus, seeing the terror in his expression, for the Stranger was no mere stranger to Kurt any longer. For a moment, the killer simply stood in the night, silent and watchful, living in the moment. He then turned towards the boys' home, smiling evilly. Feeling the last of the human child's lifeforce seep away, the task at hand already taking precedence; the Seattle mist picked up, becoming a violent storm in moments. Perhaps it was God's sick idea of a joke, a backdrop for the horrible thing about to happen. Or, perhaps it was an innocent coincidence. No matter what it was, there was no doubt that the night belonged to the Stranger. There was no doubt that he would kill again, and hunt, and kill, an apex predator of the shadow. He would live on in the darkness, and when the world was cold and dead, he would continue his eternal existence. But on this night, in cold and gloomy Seattle, where the storms replace sunshine and the shadow replaces light, the Stranger had plans to put into motion that would have an unimaginable consequence on the world as we know it. Kurt Grohlter had passed on, unbeknownst to the world, but the Stranger lived on as he always would.