Piercing Darkness

By Ben Keen

Maddy Parrish has survived the bizarre and horrific event that took the life of her boyfriend. Looking for answers, she accepts a scholarship to Ashhill University’s newly founded course in Paranormal Investigation. Shortly into her studies, however, it seem that her practical examination will be sooner than anyone expected...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Keen
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310020322

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Piercing Darkness

Ben Keen

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Ben Keen

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Acknowledgements

With thanks to my dad for his help with the cover, and to my mum and Suzette for their constant encouragement.

Back when I was fourteen, I had a boyfriend. That doesn’t really sound like the greatest of accomplishments, I know – lots of girls have had boyfriends by then – but it was big deal to me at the time. Still is, really. I wasn’t exactly the best looking girl at school, and back then I thought I was worse than I was. Kind of chubby, kind of stocky, puberty was dragging its feet on the chest but double timing it on the oily skin. So when Greg asked me out my first thought was it was some Carrie-type practical joke. Happily I wasn’t stupid enough to take that past the first thought and said yes.

He was in the year above me, good looking in a sort of scruffy way. Our first date could have gone better, we went to see a movie, I think because that’s what he thought you ‘should’ do on a date, and it was terribly, terribly awkward. Even so, I was just thrilled to have been on a date at all – it’s not like I had any basis for comparison – and I guess he must have had a reasonably good time, because he asked me out again the next week.

That went a lot better, I think because we didn’t try to structure it the way we thought it ‘should’ go. In fact we didn’t really do much of anything, just wandered around for a while, chatting. When my parents asked afterwards how things had gone, they asked what we’d been talking about, and you know, I had no idea what to say. We didn’t really talk ‘about’ anything, as such, just chatted on and on in one of those endless, looping conversations that never really approach anything you might call a topic. It sounds boring as hell to describe, but I had a great time and I think he did too.

Our third date was a lot like that one, but at the end, just after we said goodbye, we kissed. It shocked me at first, I was still seeing myself as way uglier than I was, and I think he took it the wrong way because he apologised the next time we met. Explaining things after that was maybe the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, but it was worth it. We went on more dates after that, and the kisses came earlier into each one. Mostly we’d just wander around the neighbourhood – we lived quite close together – talking when we thought anyone might be looking and kissing the rest of the time. It was great fun.

One day, a few weeks before my fifteenth birthday, we were walking by a house that had been abandoned for the last few months. I think the family that had lived there had been foreclosed on or something like that. We walked up to it, to see if we could see anything interesting in the windows, and Greg tried the doorknob, I think more on a whim than anything else. To our surprise it turned easily and the door swung open. We went in.

It was strange inside; only half the windows were boarded up, so the rooms were randomly bright and gloomy. There was no furniture, which was a bit unsettling for me because it was the same floor plan as my house. It was as if I’d come home to find my family had disappeared. The smell was musty but not really unpleasant, and somehow it seemed unnaturally quiet, as though the bareness of the walls and floor was sucking up all the sound.

We wandered around a bit, trying light switches (dead) and taps (ditto). We stopped for a while in the kitchen, looking out the big window above the sink. The yard was as empty as the house, and the lawn had grown tall, above knee height. The front lawn wasn’t like that, someone must have been taking care of it. Property values, I guess. I leaned up against the sink, closer to the window, Greg standing a little behind me. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t a little behind me but close enough that his chest was brushing my back. I leant back, or maybe I stopped leaning forward, and we were pressed together. He put his arms around me, resting his hands on my belly. That didn’t really thrill me, body issues and all, but I didn’t say anything and after a while he put his hands on my hips and sort of turned me around, or more like gave me a little push to suggest I turn around, which I did.

Then we started kissing, and he moved his hands down to my butt. I think every other time we’d kissed we’d been holding back a bit, worried that someone was going to walk in on us and we’d have to separate. This was different, no one was going to walk in on us here, and that was a slightly scary, slightly sexy thought. We kept kissing for a long time, parting briefly to catch our breaths and smile at each other, and his hands started moving up my body. He did it with a casual sort of rubbing motion: his hands would rub up and down my butt and end up on the small of my back, they’d rub there and end up on my waist, over and over until they were resting on my ribcage, just below my bra. My body issues were completely forgotten by this point, buried under the kisses, and right then I wanted nothing more than for his hands to go up one more time.

Then he pulled away, and the moment was lost. I could have screamed. He looked around, his brow furrowed, as though he was expecting to see something but wasn’t sure where it was. Did you hear that? he asked.

Hear what? I said. I hadn’t heard anything but our breathing, and the occasional car going by outside.

I’d swear I heard whispering.

I didn’t hear anything. I told him. I was trying to think of something to say to get him back to the kissing, when he backed off altogether, and looked down at the floor.

I think it came from the basement. He said. The basement and the attic were the only two rooms we hadn’t been in. They were creepy enough in actual inhabited houses, thank you very much. He stepped towards the door, but turned back when he realised I wasn’t following. C’mon, he said, smiling, let’s take a look. I didn’t really want to, but what could it hurt? We’d go