The darkness was thick, it was heavy, and it had a sense of personality to it that Jeremy couldn’t quite pin down. While he wasn’t one to believe in ghosts or demons, he couldn’t put away the feeling that something was there. Like the last rep on the bench press, the weight upon his chest felt like it could not be overcome.
He sat up in bed and pushed his thick black hair out of his eyes. The typical red luminosity from his digital clock even seemed dimmer than normal. The clock read 4:44 and he hated the idea of being awake this early. “An hour and a half before my alarm goes off,” he grumbled. “I’m going to feel sick if I go back to sleep now and wake up again that soon.”
The darkness seemed to grow thicker and he completely lost sight of his clock. “Damn, am I going blind?” he wondered. He could see nothing outside as the sky seemed even darker than the sludge in his room. He pulled the Playboy out from under his mattress but was doubly disappointed as he realized he could see nothing of the girls on the pages. Stuffing the magazine back into its hiding place, he flopped to his stomach with one arm hanging off the bed.
“Why are you still in bed?” he heard his mom shout. “You’ve got ten minutes before the bus is here.”
He struggled to his feet and realized that his arm had fallen completely asleep. “No time for a shower,” he said. Several swipes of deodorant, a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt were his only option and he grabbed his backpack and shoes as he ran out his bedroom door and down the stairs.
“Hey, Mom,” he said as he tied his shoes. “Was there anything weird last night? You know, like with the moon or anything?”
“Weird?” she repeated. “I don’t think so. I think it was a full moon. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing really,” he said. “I woke up really early and it just seemed extra dark.” A flash of yellow caught his eye through the front window and he grabbed a banana before running out the front door.
He made it to the bus stop in time and walked to the back seat, flicking the ear of a younger student. “Get outta my seat, Phil,” he said. The younger boy complied and Jeremy flopped into the vacant space.
“Damn, Jeremy, you look like shit,” another boy said. “What happened?”
“Ah, nothing,” he answered. “I woke up really early and then woke up too late. I didn’t even eat breakfast. Poke me if I look like I’m falling asleep in class.”
He hurried off the bus as it pulled up in front of the building. “Dude, what’s your hurry?” his friend asked.
“Come on, follow me,” he said. “I need you to be a look out for me.” The two boys maintained a casual look as they took a right toward the teacher’s lounge. “I need some coffee. Stay by the door and watch for anyone. Whistle or something if someone is headed this way.”
He slipped back out of the teacher’s lounge just as Mr. Miller approached. “Go, go, go,” he said. “We’ve got like one minute to get to math class. I hope this terrible coffee works. Geometry is hard enough as it is. I don’t need to be sleepy too.”
After kicking Phil out of his seat again on the bus ride home, Jeremy flopped down again and tried to figure out why it seemed so dark the night before. “Maybe I was dreaming or something,” he thought. “I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
“Hey, Mom,” he yelled as he walked into the house. “I’ve got math homework. Can you let me know when dinner is ready?”
He slammed his bedroom door and turned on Rob Zombie a little louder than normal. Standing up and leaning over his desk, he focused on the chapter and tried to remember what had happened in math class eight hours earlier.
Everything went suddenly silent and he picked up his head off of his desk. “Jeremy, wake up,” his mom said. “I don’t know why you’re so tired. You slept in this morning. And how can you study with that racket playing? Anyway, dinner is ready. Dad won’t be here. He has to work late.”
After he finished eating, he began trudging back up the stairs. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” his mom said. “I made the dinner, you can clean the kitchen first before you disappear into your bedroom. Just make sure you go to bed early tonight. Being tired messes up your school day.”
With his math book in one hand and his notebook in the other, he paced his room trying to finish his homework without sitting down. “I have got to get this done,” he grumbled. In what turned out to be an impressive balancing act, he managed to finish the assignment before he climbed into the shower.
He had sprawled himself across his bed in his boxers when his mom knocked on the door. The knocking continued until he figured out it was knocking and not his music. “Jeremy, it’s already after nine,” she said. “You should turn off the music and go to sleep. And I still don’t understand why you’re so tired. Set your alarm for the morning.”
Asleep on his stomach with both arms underneath him, he woke up again at 4:44 and the room had the same thick feeling as the night before. “Jeremy!” he heard someone whisper, what sounded like directly in his ear.
“Huh…whuh…whuh… who said that?” he mumbled. “God, I hate that. It’s so dark again. What the hell?” The sound of the alarm on his phone woke him after what seemed mere moments after his early morning darkness.
Following his morning shower, he sat at the kitchen counter eating oatmeal and skimming through the internet, looking for anything about the strange darkness he had experienced.
At the end of the day, he hurried to Mr. Zawistowski’s science lab to ask about his experiences the last two nights. “That is really odd, Jeremy,” he said. “But there was nothing going on astronomically the last two nights. My guess is that you’re just having some sort of weird dream. If this was a global phenomenon, we would be hearing about it in the news. Sorry I don’t have a better answer. Maybe try video recording with your phone or laptop. That might show something.”
“Oh, yeah, a video,” he said. “Great idea. Thanks.”
He scoured the internet again that evening with the hopes of finding anything about his darkness but finding nothing, he set up his laptop on the far corner of his desk, a wide enough view to see his bed and the digital output of his clock. Confident that this video plan would provide the answers he needed, he hung around the living room and kitchen until after ten-thirty, hoping that going to bed later would help him sleep through the night.
He returned to his room, turned off the light, and pressed the record button on the laptop. Slowly walking around the room and being sure to pass in front of the clock several times, he turned the light back on and the video camera off. “What is this going to look like?” he wondered. He took a seat at his desk and watched the three minute video. The playback was grainy but clearer than he expected. The glowing red numbers on the clock were clearly visible, then disappeared and then reappeared as he passed back and forth.
“I guess that creates a control set, as Mr. Zawistowski would say, to compare to the video from tonight.” He brushed his teeth and went to bed, only to wake up to the sound of his name being called, again, at 4:44 am. A glance at the laptop showed the blinking green light of the video recorder and he went back to sleep. His alarm woke him at 6:15 and he turned off the video. “Man, I wish I had time this morning to watch it before school,” he thought. “Maybe if I hurry, I can take a peek.”
“My goodness, Jeremy,” his mom said, “did you even taste your breakfast? What’s the big hurry? The bus won’t be here for another fifteen minutes.”
“Do you remember how I asked you the other day about it being extra dark?” he asked. “I’ve been seeing the same thing each night for three nights now and I recorded my room last night to see if I could see anything. I wanted to watch the video before school today.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Let me know if you see any ghosts or anything.” After brushing his teeth and getting everything ready for school, he skimmed through the video and stopped at the 4:42 time on the clock. With the video playing in real time, he stared at the mostly dark room and his motionless body on the bed. The clock flipped to 4:43 and then 4:44 and he saw himself sit up and he heard himself mumble something. “Geesh, is that what I sound like in the morning?” Replaying the video, he turned the sound all the way up but heard nothing. The light levels did not change and he saw and heard nothing, except his own incoherence.
Disappointed, he slid his laptop into his backpack and walked to the bus stop. “Damn, Jeremy, what’s up with you?” his buddy Damien asked. “Why so grumpy?”
“Ah, it’s nothing,” he lied. “I’ve just been sleeping weird lately and I videotaped myself last night but didn’t see or hear anything. It was Mr. Zawistowski’s idea but turned out to be a dead end.”
He snuck off to the library during lunch and watched the video again but this time with headphones and came up with the same nothing. “I guess I just dreamed it all,” he thought. “It probably won’t happen again tonight. They say things usually happen in threes.”
Like clockwork, and sound asleep, he heard his name called again but instead of waking to darkness, he opened his eyes to a middle aged man with a slight white glow emanating from him. “Hello Jeremy,” he said. “It took a while but I can finally talk to you now.” Shielding his eyes and leaning up on one elbow, Jeremy tried to respond but presumed he sounded incoherent as the man merely smiled.
“I have an important message for you,” he said. “You are going to go on to do great things but it will take you a long time to prepare yourself for it. The first thing you need to do is get your grades up and then apply to the University of Washington in Seattle.”
“Seattle?” he repeated. “You mean like all the way up in Washington state? Why would I go all the way to Seattle from St. Louis? That is a long way away. There is no way my mom will go for that.”
“I know you have no reason to trust me,” he said. “But if you watch carefully, pay attention, and think carefully about the things that take place. You’ll see that this is the path you’ll take.” I’ll stay in contact over the next two years. Trust me, this is for the best.”
Total darkness, save the red glow from the clock, refilled the room and Jeremy sat up in bed, wide awake and completely confused. The digital clock gave him company for the next hour and a half and he turned off his alarm before it sounded. He spent the majority of his morning, picking at his oatmeal and surfing the University of Washington website. “There is no way I’m getting into that school,” he grumbled. “For one, my grades aren’t good enough and two, I don’t want to go to college. This is crazy.”
Jeremy and his best friend Damien stood in the cafeteria lunch line and watched the girls in line ahead of them. “It’s kinda weird to see you in the lunch line, Jeremy,” Damien said. “I thought you didn’t like the school food.”
“Yeah, I don’t but it’s pizza today,” he said. “Someone was telling me that the new head cook kills on the pizza. So I figured I’d give it a try.”
“Oh, Jenny, I was going to tell you about Brad’s new plans,” the girl directly behind Jeremy said. “I know you’ve got the hots for him…but anyway, the University of Washington got hold of him to play football for them next year. They said they’d pay for all of his tuition if he came and played football. Pretty crazy, huh?”
“Washington? You mean, like Washington DC?” she said.
“No, Washington, the state, over by Oregon,” she answered. “I guess it’s a really good school.”
Jeremy did his best not to turn around and say something but his ears were definitely burning as the girl spoke. The two boys found an open spot at one of the last tables in the cafeteria and ate their pizza. “Not bad, Damien, not bad at all,” Jeremy said. “I’ll have to keep an eye out for the next time they have pizza.”
That evening after dinner, Jeremy returned to his bedroom and wrote down the date and time of his conversation with the glowing man, as well as the conversation he overheard in the lunch line. “I might as well document it, otherwise I’ll forget.”
Many weeks passed and he had no more late night darkness or strange visions until the edges of his memory faded until it all seemed nothing more than the memory of a dream. A new girlfriend and skyrocketing grades, much to his surprise, kept his attention as his junior year hurried past.
Jeremy and his girlfriend, Sarah sat in the back of his truck at the edge of a small wood, looking across an open field opposite them. “We’ve got less than a year,” he said. “I hate the idea that you’ll be going off to college but I know that’s what you should do.”
“You could go to college with me,” she said. “College really isn’t that hard. You just have to know what classes to take. They say you can’t go wrong with a business degree. We could be together then.”
“Ehh, I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t like studying, even in high school. I just want to get a job and get on with life. I don’t think I can do another four years of school.”
“Oh, shoot, what time is it?” she said. “My dad said I needed to be home by eleven tonight. He’s already mad at me for being out late last night. I really need to go… right now.”
Jeremy drove away and watched Sarah walk into her house. As he walked into his own home, his mom called to him from the family room. She paused some romantic comedy as he walked into the room. “Hey, you’re early tonight,” she said. “Dad has a big announcement he wants to tell us.”
He leaned against the doorframe as his father began talking. “I know it’s the middle of the school year and everything but my work is relocating me to another office on the west coast,” he said. They’re paying for the move and everything. We need to make it happen in the next three weeks.
“The west coast? Really,” he said. “Where? Like California or something?”
“No, actually we’re moving to Seattle,” he said. “I guess it’s really nice and green there. Lots to do outside. Hiking, climbing, rivers, and lakes and the ocean is right there too. It’s like the hot spot to live right now. Sorry to spring it on you but they just told me today.”
“Well, I guess that answers my questions about college or ever seeing my girlfriend again,” he said. “Three weeks… man, that’s really quick.” Turning from the conversation, he jogged up the stairs and slammed his door behind him. “Damn, Seattle, that cannot be a coincidence.” He spent the next ten minutes digging through his bookshelf in search of that one notebook. “Ah, here it is,” he said. The long paragraph in his own handwriting reminded him of the conversation he had with the glowing man. “Shoot, I don’t know what to think now.”
The digital clock poured its pale red light upon him and flipped over to 4:44 am. “Jeremy,” he heard a voice call out. He sat up to face the glowing man again. “Ugh, you are real after all,” he mumbled. “Unless I’m dreaming. What do you want?”
“I told you not that long ago that you’d be going to the University of Washington, didn’t I?” he said. “You’ve got more to do to get there but you are going to Seattle. You forgot about me but I told you this would take place. Trust me, you are on a path you cannot avoid.” And like the flip of a light switch, the room returned to its customary darkness. Jeremy saw his own hand in front of his face, the full moon hanging outside, and the various shades of black of a typical early morning.
The following three weeks at school felt like a wet blanket that smelled of dog. Word slowly spread around that he would be leaving and he spent every possible moment with Sarah. The two of them stood in his now empty bedroom and watched the moving truck pull away from their now empty house. “I guess that means I won’t be going to college with you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I hate to say goodbye but I don’t really have any choice.”
“I think we better walk outside,” she said. “I’m sure your parents are waiting for you. Can you give me a ride home on your way?”
Three days of driving and Jeremy felt he was about to die of boredom. “We’re going to stay at a hotel our first night in Seattle,” his mother said. “Nothing will be set up at the new house and I thought it would be nice to have a decent night’s sleep before we unpack.”
Everything progressed as his parents said it would and he slid into his new school even smoother than he’d hoped. “This city is completely different than back home,” he told his mom. “But I really like the chemistry teacher. He teaches way different than Mr. Zawistowski. Everything he says just kinda clicks. He says I might have a great future in some sort of chemistry research or something like that.”
“That’s great, honey,” his mom said. “I hear the University of Washington has a great science program. Maybe that’s something you could get into. You’ll need to move quickly though. I think most kids have all of their college stuff figured out already.”
Feeling like he’d just been poked, his conversation with the glowing man immediately came to mind with his mother’s comment. “Huh, university, I guess it can’t hurt to look into it,” he said.
After a whirlwind of activity over the next month, Jeremy found himself living with four other guys in a house off campus, suddenly and overwhelmingly immersed in a whole new world. A juggling act of cheap beer, college girls, and chemistry kept him busy and distracted. Out of the blue, he woke up to his name, a loud whisper at 4:44 am.
“Jeremy, I see that you’re awake now,” the man said. “By this time, it should come as no surprise that… I told you so. And here we are. If you finish out this path, you’ll be rich, married, established and successful. Just be patient and everything will come to you. All you need to do is trust me.”
Nearly dead from finals, he collapsed on his bed and really wanted to fall asleep. Even though his eyes were closed, Tim, one of his roommates, talked to him anyway. “Jeremy, dude, I was talking to a couple of guys and we came up with a really good idea. It’s not exactly original but I think we can make hella money at it. But we need your expertise in chemistry.”
He rolled to his side and looked across the room at Tim with thoughts of the comments from the glowing man. “Keep talking,” he mumbled.
“You know that show ‘Breaking Bad’? We were thinking that we could pull off something like that,” he said. “You’ve got all the knowledge and Jerry said that he would front the money to get us started. And we know enough people to move the product. Whatta think?”
“It’s a TV show, man,” Jeremy said. “Nothing is that easy and you’re talking serious trouble if we get caught. I don’t know. If you work up a good enough plan, I might be interested. But I’m not promising anything.”
A full month had passed and the five roommates carried boxes of lab equipment and chemicals into their basement. “I can’t believe that we’re doing this,” Jeremy said. “You guys have got to be smart about this. Don’t go telling everybody and their brother. Too many people talk too much.”
Another month passed and Jeremy lay sideways on his bed, sound asleep. With a feeling like someone punched him in the gut, he woke up to a relatively heavy paper sack being dropped on him. “Open it,” Tim said. “That’s your cut.”
“Dude, there’s like ten grand in here,” Jeremy said. “This is just my cut? That’s crazy.”
“See, I told you,” he said. “I bet we can get another batch made before school starts again. And business is only going to get better. Oh, we’re throwing a party tonight, here. Make yourself present.”
People continued to arrive and Jeremy began to wonder if the entire university would be coming. “Damn, this is a lot of people,” he thought. With a feeling much like a rave, the shoulder to shoulder company filled nearly every room. He woke up the next morning naked on his own couch with a girl he had no recollection of ever seeing before. “Oh man, this isn’t good,” he thought. As he tried to slowly slide out from under her arm and leg, she latched onto him. “Hmm, don’t leave,” she said. “You’re nice and warm.” She pulled herself on top of him. “That was really, really good last night. How come I’ve never seen you around school before?”
“Uh… it’s a really big school,” he said. “I’m a little foggy about last night. Did we…uh… you know… connect?”
“Oh, yeah, did we ever,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had someone go so long as you did. That was amazing. We are definitely a thing now. Come on, take me out for a coffee.”
By the following weekend, Hannah, the girl from the couch, had moved into the house with Jeremy. Three months into the new living arrangement, he rolled onto his back as she walked out of the bathroom. “Hey, Jeremy, I think I’ve got some… news,” she said. “I missed my period last time but that happens sometimes but I’m pretty sure I’ve missed it again. I think that night on the couch had some consequences.”
“Oh, uh, are you saying… are you… damn, really?” he said. “I would say that can’t be but obviously it can. Shoot, what are we going to do? I’ll pay you to get rid of it.”
“Like hell you will,” she said. “I’m not killing a little kid. You started this. You are going to be responsible for it. But I’ve got to get to class. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
He watched her finish getting dressed and ate a piece of pizza from a box on the floor. “Fifteen minutes,” he grumbled. “I’ve got to get to class too.” He paused at the door and remembered that it was late fall in Seattle. “Stupid rain,” he grumbled, grabbing his coat.
It seemed that Hannah grew bigger with each week and as the heat of summer began to arrive, her expanding waistline and mood swings began to get on everyone’s nerves. “Dude,” Tim said. “You’ve got to do something with your girlfriend. No one comes around anymore because she is such a… well, you know. I don’t know why you’re sticking it out with her.”
“It’s not like I have a whole lot of choice,” he said. “I knocked her up and she refuses to abort it. Besides, it’s too late for that now anyway.”
“Kind of a weird idea, but when I was a kid, we had a dog that got pregnant and my dad just drove it out in the woods and dropped it off,” he said. “Maybe you could do something like that.”
“Dude, what is wrong with you,” he said. “That’s two people you’re talking about. I can’t just dump them in the woods somewhere.”
Someone knocking on the door interrupted their conversation. “Who knocks on our door?” Tim said. “Must be someone we don’t know. Go answer it.”
Jeremy opened the door to a very excited looking Sarah. “Jeremy, there you are,” she said. “Your parents gave me your address and it took me forever to find this place. Can I come in?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said, “this is my roommate Tim. Tim, this is Sarah, an old friend from high school.”
“I think about you all the time,” she said. “It’s only been like a year and I really wanted to see you. You’ve got to tell me everything that you’ve been up to.”
Relaying the details of his college life, while leaving out the details about meth production and a pregnant girlfriend, he painted a relatively innocuous picture of his last year. “So how’s college going for you?” he asked.
Jeremy kept one eye on the clock while he listened to Sarah drone on and on about her school year. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he said. “How about we go get some dinner. I know this really good Thai place.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” she said. “I’m kind of hungry.”
“I just need to grab my coat,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped into his bedroom and caught Tim’s attention. “Dude, Hannah is going to be here any time. Make up some story about me being out for a while but don’t mention Sarah.”
The two of them sat in the relatively empty restaurant and he worked very hard at bringing the conversation back to their good times in high school. He was torn between wanting the conversation to end and wanting it to go longer with the hope that Hannah would go to bed before he returned. A long lull grew after they had finished their meal. “I should probably get back to my hotel room,” she said. “The trip here made me pretty tired. But it was really nice connecting with you.”
She pulled her rental car in front of Jeremy’s house and turned off the engine. “Can I run in and use your bathroom real quick? I hate using public bathrooms or I would have gone at the restaurant.”
“Uh, yeah… that’s fine,” he said. “But be warned. You’re walking into a house that four guys live in. I can’t guarantee how clean it is.”
The green curry he had just eaten seemed to turn into a brick in his stomach at the thought of Sarah running into Hannah. “Let her be asleep, let her be asleep,” he thought. He opened the front door for her and the two of them walked into a very grumpy looking Hannah wearing only a t-shirt.
“Oh, hello,” Sarah said. “I’m Sarah, an old friend of Jeremy’s and you are?”
“I’m Jeremy’s girlfriend Hannah,” she said, rubbing her stomach.
“Oh… hi Hannah. Nice to meet you,” she said. “Sorry I just popped in to use your bathroom. Which way is it?”
Hannah pointed towards her and Jeremy’s bedroom. “It’s just inside our bedroom. On the right.”
She hurried in and hurried back out. “That was fun spending some time with you Jeremy,” she said on her way out the front door. “We need to exchange numbers so I don’t lose track of you again.”
Jeremy, a knotted combination of fear and desperation, stepped out the front door, exchanged numbers and said goodbye to Sarah. As he came back in the house, Tim had disappeared and Hannah stood with her arms crossed. “Did you have FUN with your FRIEND?” she hissed. “You’re sleeping on the couch tonight and don’t even think about touching me.”
The bedroom door slammed behind her and Jeremy turned on the TV, an empty distraction from what was sure to be the color of their relationship for a while. It was nearly one o’clock when he finally turned off the TV and he resigned himself to the fact that he would be sleeping in his clothes that night. Within the hour, the room suddenly became bright and he sat up wondering who turned the TV back on. But instead of the television, he turned to face the glowing man.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said.
“Well, isn’t that a nice greeting,” he said. “I cannot even begin to describe just how far off track you are. When I spoke of wealth, marriage, and success, this is not what we have planned. You’re selling illegal drugs, you’ve gotten a girl you don’t even know pregnant, and you live like a hippie. This is a perfect example of trying too hard well before you’re ready. You better figure out what to do to get yourself back on track or, I promise, things are going to fall apart very quickly and very horribly.”
“Figure it out, Jeremy,” he said and then disappeared.
A sudden blow to the gut woke Jeremy from his too little of sleep and he pushed the just thrown backpack onto the floor. “Oh, dude, sorry, didn’t see you there,” Tim said. “I would ask why you’re sleeping on the couch but I have a guess that it has to do with Hannah meeting Sarah. Bad luck for you, man. Have fun working that out.”
“Ha, yeah, bad luck is right,” he said. “I slept terrible and not enough. I hope I can make it through the day.”
“Hey, I have to leave for class right now but it’s garbage day,” he said. “Can you push the can out into the alley? We can’t afford to miss another pickup.”
“Yeah, sure,” he answered.
Seeing the rain, he slipped on his shoes and a jacket with a hood and tried to run between the raindrops. He held the garbage can closed as he dragged it across the overgrown lawn. Lining it up in the alleyway with the neighbors cans, he turned to go back in when like a shot someone whispered in his ear, “Run!”
“Damn, I know that voice,” he thought and without another, complied. Down the alley and in a weaving pattern across several blocks, he simply fled from it all. “Geez, where am I supposed to go?” He opened the map app on his phone and saw that the bus station was only six blocks away. He found a wad of cash in his pocket, placed there when Sarah arrived. “Sweet, that’s going to come in handy.”
The sound of sirens a few blocks behind him immediately clarified what it was that he had just run from. Within a few minutes, he bought a bus ticket to San Diego with the plan to cross the border into Mexico. “Cheaper living, they say,” he thought.