Rivulet of Darkness

By Albert B. Garcia

In 1979, young David De Le Cruz and his parents move out of their rented one-bedroom house in town to be closer to his father’s job. David’s dad takes care of a local farm just outside of Hanford, California. David thinks moving to the country will be a new beginning to a great life—until something unsettling starts to happen.

Late at night, David experiences strange manifestations, unsure of what they mean and what is happening to him. He is surrounded by horrors and haunted by a darkness that opens a world he is forced to face.

David’s Aunt Vera, his father’s older sister, uses her spiritual beliefs through the practice of witchcraft to help him face the evil that feeds off of his fear. Her efforts are not enough. Flashes of images flow out from his mind like small streams of remembered nightmares. These dreams become David’s window to the outside world while trapped inside his own rivulet of darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665727297

Albert B. Garcia

Albert Baiz Garcia was born in Hanford, California, where he lives and works today. He went to West Hills College to study English literature and writing. He has three children and sees his writing as a legacy for generations of his family to come.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

LIFE HAS GIVEN EACH OF us a personality and information that we process every day of our lives that we do not understand. We can only live with what we learn as we are taught by those around us. Sometimes we get flashes of images that become powerful within the mind and channel a path that streams through the soul. The soul becomes the window to the outside world that lay deep in the darkest part of the mind. Sometimes the mind can take over and become so powerful, a power that takes over our everyday lives. Such as the power to control our dreams, thoughts, emotions, and most of all, fear. Unforeseen images pass through the rivulet of darkness that flows deep inside the mind, incapable of distinguishing the reality of what we perceive on the outside world. As children, we could not understand what impacted our well-being or the fear that pervaded our lives. We could be taught, become educated, but our minds kept our dreams and fears confined inside our brains. There is no clear explanation of the fear placed inside our minds, only what we face when the darkness sets in as we close our eyes. Then we develop this streamlet of images that manifest and start to take form, guiding us on to a mysterious path.

As a child, fear was a factor I could neither share nor ignore. Listening to everything around me seemed to be a disillusion of what was real and what was not, even though my mind had no understanding of what was happening. I was the only one in this world who was looking out through this window that I proclaimed as the opening to the real world. I often wondered, Do other people feel the same way, or am I different in such a way that I am going to fade into the darkness when the time comes to leave this world? Unaware of what was daunting me, life deceived me by placing in me this fear, which has taken over my soul and led me to believe I am being lured to that mysterious path. So many unanswered questions, yet so young to be thinking about why life chose me to envision this fear that has manifested into this form of reality.

There was a time in my life when loneliness devoured every part of me. This left me with an emptiness that was taken over by the fear that would ultimately become a big part of my life, leaving me vulnerable to all the things a child must face. I often questioned why I saw things inside my head that seemed to be so real. I lay in bed, staring into the darkness while unsettled thoughts went through my mind only to become a question with no answer. Could this fear be a childhood imagination, or was it a premonition of a strange force that has consumed my mind while pulling me into a world of unknown darkness? Could this unknown darkness be a world that is meaningless or an empty passageway to nothing? Such questions kept invading my thoughts.

Nevertheless, I felt my soul had to live on but always suffer the loneliness of being taken away like a rivulet of flowing water falling into a river of darkness. Like a lost spirit that would not be at peace but only succumb to an endless transient who lost in the afterlife. A lost spirit that would never find the peace to the outside world, only the fear that consumed my soul that would vanish into this mysterious darkness.

My images were never clear as I grew up during a time when my mind was struggling to allow me to think like a normal child. These thoughts of fear would always appear in my dreams and wake me up close to three in the morning. I’d always felt different, especially when I was around the other kids in school, and I failed to make friends. And I always had this faraway look in my eyes that got me in trouble with my teacher, who never seemed to think that I was dazed from the insomnia I suffered. I often wondered how long this fear that invaded my thoughts would continue to torment me. My emotions were very confusing at times, but I remained with this idea that something else was controlling my thoughts. I felt my emotions had succumbed to my fears, leaving me with a sense of confusion about who I am. My emotions toward everyday life were somewhat numb, which kept me shut out from the reality of the outside world.

Life as a little boy should have been more carefree and less problematic. But all these thoughts and fears had grown into an imaginary carousel that never stopped turning. It was as if something held me back and would not let me get off to live my life. I often wanted to confront the imaginary force feeding off my mind, but I was not strong enough. Maybe it was that I just did not know how to fix this. I could not let this thing take over, always leaving me wondering if this evil force would allow me to grow up and live a normal life. I became so frustrated that I truly needed to talk to someone. But I just decided to place a small Bible under my pillow and talk to God. I prayed, I need help, God, to become a stronger person to get through this whole ordeal. Then I started wondering if there really was a God, and if so, why would he let me go through this?

I started out as a happy only child who was well taken care of by my parents, Frank and Kathrine De Le Cruz. We did not have much, just a roof over our heads and enough food to get us through the month. My father worked on a local farm with different types of orchards that he took care of. They included walnuts, peaches, plums, and nectarines. My father worked long hours to provide for me and my mother, even though he had always battled a disease that would haunt him, not realizing this would be his fallback in life. I looked at my father as this giant man, standing five feet ten inches tall. He was an average-built man with a straggly beard and black wavy hair he kept combed straight back, showing his receding hairline. At times, I would see him come through the back door from work wearing this old white T-shirt and a pair of old baggy jeans that sat below his belly.

He seemed to me to be a close-minded person who kept to himself and had nothing good to say about anyone. I often thought about wanting to grow up fast just to get away from this difficult man, who became angry with me for just about anything. My father would just sit in his chair and stare at the television, ignoring everyone inside the house.

My mother, on the other hand, was a very patient lady whose composure made her a selfless and a caring person to everyone in our family. A petite woman, my mother always wore long denim skirts she would find in a secondhand store, along with an old yellow apron she would put on when working around the kitchen. I always smelled food cooking about the same time of day for dinner, so I would walk into the kitchen just to see what she was cooking. There were times when I looked into the kitchen and could see how tired she looked as she pushed her shoulder-length black hair away from her face with the back of her hand. My mother always seemed to look happy and content with what she had in her life, even though she had to wait on my father for just about anything he wanted. My mother would smile at me. She seemed to believe that living day by day reflected a great life, so she never worried about the future; she lived for the present.

My parents were simple people who believe in God and always talked about the Bible when my relatives came over to visit. Both my parents believed in spirits and lost souls that would wander aimlessly around this earth due to an unforeseen incident brought on by someone or something evil. My parents also believed that if you were a bad person, there were evil spirits that would attach themselves to your soul and follow you into your home. My parents seemed naive and believed all the stories that my uncles and aunts told them. My family often talked about things in the spiritual world that they had experienced and the strange stuff they saw during their early lives.

Looking back, I remember my father’s family mostly stopping by to visit us, usually bringing stuff they had collected throughout the years. Things like old pictures of movie stars and statues. They showed them to my parents and told us stories.

I did have, however, this one peculiar aunt named Vera. She would visit us several times during the year. Aunt Vera and her husband, Joe, travelled around in their mobile home and stopped by three or four times a year. Aunt Vera was my dad’s older sister, and she always made time to visit him. My aunt Vera was a short, medium-sized woman. Her dark-brown hair was cut just above her shoulders, which brought out a cold look in her face. Aunt Vera had a loud voice and demanding personality that carried throughout our house. I always noticed her wearing button-up dark shirts and denim jeans as she walked around with no expression on her face.

As mean as she was, she enjoyed spending time with us and filling my parents’ heads with her spiritual beliefs. My parents believed she was into white magic. I never understood what that was, but it seemed interesting to me. My aunt often tried to hand me a Crucifix Cruz De Caravaca cross and tell me to wear it so that evil spirits would not possess my soul. I would just stare at my aunt, but I believed this would bring something so ominous to my world, along with what I was already experiencing during the dark hours of the night. Even though Aunt Vera was a difficult person to understand, there were moments when she was there for us when we desperately needed her.

CHAPTER 2

I LIVED ON A FARM from 1979 to 1984, in an old white house that was built long ago. It sat buried inside an old walnut orchard. The house was a one-story, three-bedroom home. Its worn-out white paint was peeling off the wood. In order to get to the house, you had to drive about a mile along an old, dark country road surrounded by old, large, eerie walnut trees. As you approached the home, you had to drive down a dirt driveway to where the house sat.

The first time we drove up to the house, I noticed the large porch at the front entrance. The wooden porch railing made the house look strange and even older. As I walked up the wooden steps onto the porch, I could hear the wood move and creak under my feet. I slowly opened the screen door, which was held together by an old wooden frame. The heavy wooden front door used to be locked by a skeleton key.

As I walked into the house, I immediately noticed it smelled like old, damp wood. The house was so cold and dreary, I could see the steam come from my mouth. I sensed a strange presence that made me feel as though I was not the only one standing here.

After I walked through each room, I took the bedroom that was in the far back of the house, next to the kitchen. The kitchen had a door that led on to the back porch, which was enclosed by an old, dusty, dark screen that overlooked the backyard. The backyard was covered with thick green grass that surrounded the house. Old rosebushes that looked half dead grew near the exterior windows.

As I stepped off the back porch in to the backyard, I noticed a big, old, wood barn to my right. I knew right then that I would not set foot in it at night. The barn was surrounded by walnut trees, which made it look more disturbing.

Soon after moving in, I made my way over to the barn and tried to move the two sliding doors. They were sitting on some rusted rails, which made it difficult to open. I found some loose boards around the backside to crawl through. At night I often noticed a white owl flying out of the barn. I would catch a glimpse of its reflection in the moonlight that brightened its white feathers as it flew away into darkness. I could never see past the barn at night due to those big, old walnut trees that kept out most of the moonlight around the property.

During the day I found plenty to do other than just hanging around the house, waiting for the night to set in. I later found out a canal ran alongside a large pond behind the old barn, just past the walnut trees. There were days I walked to the pond during the summer and went swimming by myself. I just floated around the edge of the pond. I felt so free from the fear that had been growing deep in my mind.

As the time passed, unexplained things started to happen. The thought of living my life as a happy