Beyond The Door Of Darkness (Larry Petals Detective Agency Book 1) by James T. Cunningham

Author:James T. Cunningham [Cunningham, James T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DLG Publishing Partners
Published: 2023-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

10

My brother Michael has finally had enough of my odd but visually pleasing ‘drip castle,’ and he swipes at it with his right arm leveling it.

The scream echoes out once again. I turn from him to the cry of agony coming from behind me. It’s the same woman, tall, skinny, with a big, round sun hat, but now she’s running down the beach towards the ocean.

“My baby, somebody save my baby!” She’s finally able to conjure words instead of solely cries of pain.

All the parents on the beach rise to their feet in unison. I watch my mother and father do the same. It’s the moment everyone has realized these are not screams coming from children playing but rather the soul of a mother convulsing and dying inside.

They each bring a hand to their brow to try and block out the sun. All the standing adults' heads turn and watch while the shrieking woman hurdles over sunbathers and past colorful umbrellas. A whistle from the lifeguard sounds off, and now the entire beach is up and alerted to see what’s happening. Even the heads of shaggy beach dogs playing fetch stop and watch the woman run to the water.

Nobody moves. Everyone stands like mannequins, frozen in the sand, watching.

She starts getting closer to my brother and down by the ocean and me. A lifeguard jumps off his stand onto the sandy hill below it and beelines to the water.

Running past my mother and father, who are standing completely still, frozen in time, the woman is only yards away from us. She keeps one hand on the brim of the sunhat, tilting it down, but I can see her skinny, pale face glinting in the light underneath it.

Jesus Christ, she’s headed right for me.

“Michael!” I call out, reaching a hand over for my brother, but he’s gone.

She’s running directly at me. I begin to cry next to the rubble of my once elegant drip castle. When she gets to me, she stops and looks down at me and my castle. The massive brim on her hat blocks out the sun, and she lowers her head down, revealing once again the fleshless face of a bare skull. With the empty sockets of her eyes fixed on me like two black holes, she releases a primordial howl into the deep blue sky.

This must have been the first time I had ever heard the sounds of true pain.

“Why didn’t you do something?” Her teeth and jawbone clatter together.

Tears stream down my eyes as I look for my family on the beach, but they’re gone; everyone is gone.

“Why didn’t you help, Larry?” Her voice is sharp and shrill, like a snake’s tongue.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching. I didn’t know.”

She bends down and puts her stark white skull up to my face. I look directly into the emptiness of her eye sockets and see the broken world for the way it truly is for the first time. Inside my chest, my heart fights with the bottomless darkness that is trying to wrap it up and consume it.

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