Date sent: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 17:32:38 -0800 (PST) From: Emily Miller Subject: Before: The Dark 1/1 E.Miller ARCHIVE: Anywhere DISCLAIMER: ... SPOILERS: None CLASSIFICATION: VA RATING: G SUMMARY:After the sun goes down... Before: The Dark 1/1 E.Miller __________________________________________________ The house was big and old. Old enough that people had probably died there, people who had been murdered and wanted revenge! She was sure of it, but it was neat, during the day at least. She was drawing a picture of the person who had, maybe, died in her very room. "Dana, that's gross," 8 year old Missy remarked as she leaned over her younger sister's shoulder to look. Dana covered her picture with her arms, knocking the crayons she had been using off the table. Everyone of them exited their box. "Pick them up," she ordered, since it WAS Missy's fault. "No," was the reply, and she walked out of the room. Dana stuck out her tongue before sliding off the chair and getting on her knees to shove the crayons back in the box. Her picture wasn't really gross, she assured herself as she looked at it again. What was so gross about a guy lying on the floor with blood all over the place? She COULD have had his eyes clawed out or his stomach ripped open, like it talked about in Bill's books that she wasn't supposed to be reading. Charles reassured her even more. "Wow," He said when he climbed up on the chair beside her and looked at the drawing. This time, she didn't cover it up. "It's the guy that died in my room," She explained. "Did somebody die in MY room?" He wanted to know. She shrugged. "Maybe. I'll draw him tomorrow, okay?" "I'll draw him," he replied, and pulled a sheet of paper from under the one she was working on. He pulled the box of crayons so that they were between them and pulled out the blue one. "This is what color the walls used to be," He said to himself. They drew mostly in silence, every once in awhile leaning over to see the others, until their mother called, "Charles! Dana! Bedtime!" Dana looked out the window then and notice for the first time that it had gotten dark. She looked at her picture again, at the window in the corner of it- you could see stars and a big yellow moon outside-, and shivered. Charles didn't seem to care that they'd been drawing dead people right before night came. "How come Bill an' Missy don' hafta go ta bed?" He asked as he jumped off the chair and ran up stairs to his room, where his mother was waiting. Dana was quick to follow him, because she didn't want to be left all alone. The upstairs hall light wasn't on, and she wasn't going to be the one gotten while searching for it. She ran down the hall and into Charles' room, where he, her mother, and Bill were sitting. No telling where Missy was. "What's wrong, Dana?" Asked her mother, noticing Dana glancing behind her to see that nothing had followed her. "Nothing," She said quickly. "Hey, Bill, wanna come see what I put on my wall today?" She HAD put up a new poster, one of his old ones, but she really wanted him to go so that she didn't have to go back out into the dark and then go into MORE dark in her room. "Sure," Bill agreed, and she was sure he knew why she wanted him to, but also understood why she was afraid. It was the first time she could ever remember having a room to herself in all of her 6 years, and she actually wished she was still sharing it with Missy, even if now she didn't have to listen to her older sister's stupid music all the time. He held her hand comfortingly as they went into the dark hall and found the light switch and flipped the light on for her in her room. "Mom'll be in here in just a few minutes to turn out the light," He assured her, and smiled before leaving. She knew she was supposed to go ahead and turn out the lights and get into bed, but just couldn't make her feet move in the direction she needed them to- back to the door and the switch. Instead, they took her where she really WANTED them to, to her bed that was the only safe place in the entire room. She climbed on the bed, but just sat there after that, waiting for her mother. She wished her dad was going to be home before tomorrow. Then he could read her another chapter from Moby Dick and she wouldn't be scared. They were at the good part, too, when Ishmael and Queequeg first got on the Pequod. She tried to remember everything they had read so far and pretend her dad was there reading it to her... "Dana? Aren't you supposed to be going to sleep?" The voice of her mother jerked her away from her pretending and she was again in the big old house where people had died, maybe. "I was waiting for you," She said. "Do you want me to turn out the light?" No, she didn't. But she had to turn it out, because if she didn't everybody would know she was scared of the dark. "Okay." "Goodnight, Dana." "'Night," She tried to keep her voice normal as she was suddenly in a world of black nothingness. If a ghost came now, what could she do? She wouldn't even be able to see it! She heard her mother leaving and hugged her pillow, wishing again that Missy was with her, complaining that she shouldn't have to go to bed at the same time as the babies, why should SHE have to share a room with someone whose bedtime was 9 o'clock? But Missy wasn't there. She was alone. "C-Call me Ishmael," She whispered into the dark, not really knowing why. Her talking would probably just help the ghosts know where she was. WERE there really ghosts? If there were, she could imagine them- they would a million times worse than the man in her picture. Their skin would be falling off, because they'd been dead so long. They would have no eyes, just holes of blackness like her room. Their mouths would have vampire teeth... fangs that would be glowing in the night so she could see them coming down for her. It would be wearing black, but she would still be able to see it. What skin it had would be a strange color and she would be able to see through it. It was there, coming closer, closer, nearer and nearer and nearer. It was reaching with a bony hand for her, its mouth was open, it was going to get her, it was there- And she gasped, her eyes flying open and her feet taking her to the light switch without her ever knowing she was up. She turned on the light and leaped back to the bed. And she lay there, shivering and trying not to blink just in case it could get her even now. After all, if she was the only one awake, who was there to tell her it wasn't going to come for her? Only adults could say it wasn't there and make it so. Or maybe not. "You're not there. There are no ghosts in this house 'cause ghosts aren't real!" She whispered, forcing her voice not to shake. Then she heard it. A low moaning noise, coming from in the hall! "Not real, not real, not real!" She informed whatever was there. The sound just got louder, and she knew that the ghost was here. She curled up in the smallest ball she could on the bed, closing her eyes so tightly they ached and putting her hands over her head. "Iiiii Aaaaaammmmmmm Rrrrreeeeeeaaaallllll," She heard the ghost say... and then heard it begin to giggle. She slowly uncurled, then sat up and tried to stop trembling. "Whhhooooo," Missy said, and leaped into the room. She almost fell to the floor laughing when she saw Dana. Dana didn't think it was very funny. "Go away," she said. "If I do, who's gonna protect you from the ggghhhooossstttsss," Missy asked, drawing out the word 'ghost' and again giggling at herself. "There are not any ghosts." Dana crossed her arms and glared at her sister. Missy didn't seem to care. "If there aren't, then why were you telling Charles there were?" She wanted to know. "I was just kidding. There aren't any, really." "Then what were you so scared of?" "I WASN'T scared." "You sure sounded scared." "Get out of my room!" She wasn't yelling, just talking as loudly as she dared without worrying about her mother coming upstairs and catching her still awake. "Whatever," Missy said with a shrug, and walked out- turning off the lights. Taking a deep breath, Dana forced herself to act as though she didn't care, even if she did. Seconds later, Missy was back- with a book. She had a place in it marked with her finger, and turned on the light long enough to read it. Dana recognized it immediately- and hated Missy for using it against her. "At last, when the ship grew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the equatorial fishing-ground," she read, "and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets, the watch- then headed by Flask- was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly- like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents- that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing." "Get OUT!" She did, but not before again turning out the lights. Dana again curled up on the bed, but now she was crying and clutching her pillow as if that could keep the ghosts away from her. She HATED Missy, why did they even have to be related? Missy was so MEAN. She tried to comfort herself. "It wasn't really ghosts in the book," She told herself out loud but softly. "It was seals. It was, they SAID. And Daddy told me that it's just a book and its not real." But now the scary parts of the book were easy to remember. She wished she could close the eyes in her head and not see THEM, like she could close her real eyes. "And Queequeg only got in the coffin because he THOUGHT he was gonna die. He didn't really, and so HE wasn't a ghost..." And then the part she hated more than anything in the whole world came to her- the part where Fedallah died and was looking at Ahab. When her dad had first read her that part, he had been right there to assure her that it was just a story. But he wasn't here now. She was on her own. "Dana? You asleep?" Bill's voice scared her, and she jumped and almost screamed again. But she managed to stop it. "Yes," She said. She didn't bother to keep her voice normal. Bill would understand. "Mom says she heard you yelling at Missy. She says to go to sleep, it's late." "But Missy-" "I'M not going to get in trouble, too... 'night, Dana." She didn't answer. Everybody in her family had turned against her- except her dad, and he was gone. She cried harder this time, into her pillow so Missy, across the hall, wouldn't hear her. She must have been there a whole hour- but it seemed like a lot longer. Maybe it HAD been a lot longer. Maybe she'd gone to sleep and just didn't remember it. Maybe it was morning. She wanted to get up and check, to see if her mother was in the kitchen and if Charles was already outside in the dirt with his toy trucks. But one glance at the window told her that it was still night. She could see the moon, large and yellow, and a few stars outside. Just like in her picture. Her picture was coming true! Except that in the picture, there hadn't actually been a ghost. Just somebody who had been murdered. She was going to be murdered! And now she could hear it. Footsteps, coming up the stairs. The man was coming to kill her. He was like the ones on TV, wearing a mask so if anybody woke up and saw him, they wouldn't be able to recognize him later. He had a gun AND a knife, just to make sure that when he killed her she was really dead. He was there... at the door to her room... she knew it, she was completely sure... She screamed. And the light came on. And she saw him. "Ahab!" He was back early! She was safe! He came to her bed and pulled her close to him, making everything okay again. Only seconds passed before the rest of her family appeared in the doorway- her mother worried, Bill and Missy excited that something was happening, and Charles confused and sleepy. "Dana? Are you okay?" Her mother asked. "Yeah, I'm fine," She said. It was true, everything was great. "Why aren't you asleep?" "I couldn't go to sleep." "Everything's okay, Maggie," Her dad assured. "GO back to bed. I'm just going to stay with Dana long enough to make sure she can get to sleep." And the others disappeared. Dana leaned against her dad. "I thought you weren't coming home 'til tomorrow," She said. "I needed to see my Starbuck," He replied. "Will you read me another chapter?" She asked. "Will it help you go to sleep?" She could tell him the truth. "I couldn't go to sleep because I was scared of the dark. And you weren't here to protect me." "Sure, I'll read to you," He said in reply, and went to get the book from where Missy had left it. He got back, again joined her on the bed, and opened the book. "In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo- the name of his black little god- and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as much as Yojo purposed befriending us; and in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg..." Dana was already asleep, and her dad quietly closed the book and left, turning out the lights. And for the rest of the night, she dreamed of sailing, with her father as the captain and herself his first mate and only friend. There were whales and predictions and wails from islands- but it was okay, because her Ahab was always there to protect her. __________________________________________________ "It's just so arrogant... to think this little backwater planet is it... that all that was put there as nothing more than our own personal light show." Ellie Arroway "It does seem like it'd be sort of a waste of space."