The Darkest Corners

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.’

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’

The old television set gave a faint clunk as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People dying.

Hell on Earth.

‘That’s New York,’ she said.

Click. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.’

Click.

‘I’m… I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’

It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like he’d told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

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The world changed.

It happened in an instant, but it felt like an age as my mind swirled with everything I had just gone through. Running from the screechers. My battle with the Beast. Discovering that Ameena wasn’t real – had never been real. But through it all one thought loomed larger than all the others.

My dad. A tape recorder. A bang from the tinny speaker as he shot and murdered my mum. His face, smiling at me. Leering, laughing.

And then an explosion inside of me. A rage, like nothing I had ever felt before. He had killed my mum. He had made me listen to her dying screams. And then he had run away.

But no matter how fast he ran, it would never be fast enough. I was coming for him. This, finally, would be the end.

Shadows engulfed me as I arrived in the Darkest Corners, the Hell-like alternate reality where all forgotten imaginary friends go. The world I’d left behind had been blanketed by snow, but here the ground was awash with filth and stagnant puddles.

The buildings around me were the same, but different. These were crumbling relics of those back in the real world, all boarded-up windows or burned-out shells. They were barely visible in the faint glow of the moon.

I spun on the spot, searching for any sign of my dad. He’d had only a few seconds’ head start, so he should have been somewhere close by. I peered into the gloom, trying to find him, but a sharp cry from behind made me turn.

Something skinny and rodent-like bounded towards me on spindly legs. Its tongue flicked hungrily over two sharp teeth and its beady eyes glistened in the darkness.

Back in my world I had unique abilities – abilities that would make dealing with a creature like this child’s play. I could conjure up a machine gun, or a chainsaw, or simply imagine the thing out of existence. I could do all that back there. Here I was powerless.

But I was too angry to care.

The rodent pounced and I was ready for it. I ducked to the side and made a grab for a rock on the ground. As the monster rounded on me I drove the grapefruit-sized stone against the side of its head. It went down with a squeal, and the rage that had brought me here tightened its grip round my chest.

I brought the rock down once more on the creature’s head. It squealed again. I kept going, kept hitting until the monster fell silent. My breath came in unsteady gulps as I stood there, staring down at the dead thing in the dirt. My eyes crept to my hand, and to the blood-soaked rock it held.

I looked down once more at the creature and told myself I’d had no option. It or me. That had been the only choice.

I dropped the rock. I turned away. And I saw my dad.

He was standing in a sliver of moonlight just twenty metres away. Close enough for me to see the grin on his face. Had he been smiling when he killed my mum? That was something for me to ask him when I was choking the life from his body.

‘Good work, kiddo,’ he called over. ‘I always said I’d make a killer out of you some day.’

I ran at him, no thought in my head but the need for revenge. No emotions left inside me but hatred and rage. His smile broadened, and I loathed him even more.

‘Not so fast,’ he said, and the darkness around me shifted as if alive. Something snaked across my path and snagged my feet. I fell hard, clattering against the cracked tarmac and rolling to a stop.

Shapes emerged from the shadows on all sides of me. Monstrous figures and grotesque, deformed faces loomed down. The things in the darkness all looked different. There was nothing to link them to one another, aside from the hatred that burned in their eyes.

I tried to get up, but whatever had tripped me now held my feet together, keeping me from moving.

Shoes scuffed on the road. I looked up and saw my dad stop beside me. He was still smiling as he shook his head and made a soft tutting noise below his breath.

‘Too easy,’ he said. ‘You’ll never get to me like that.’

‘Kill you,’ I said, half sobbing. ‘I’ll kill you.’

He looked at the circle of freaks surrounding us. ‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘My boy’s going to kill me.’

The figures began to snuffle and snort with laughter. Someone behind me let out a high-pitched giggle. A memory of hearing it before stirred at the back of my head, but then was gone.

My dad looked down at me again. ‘You’re not going to kill me, kiddo. You can’t kill me. At least,’ he gestured around him, ‘not here.’

His knees cricked as he squatted down beside my head. He stroked my hair. I pushed his hands away and the night was filled with that laughter again.

‘It’s been a long road, son,’ he said. ‘You’ve worked hard, but it’s almost over. You’re almost done. The barrier between this world and yours is almost gone. One more big push should do it. One more big push and your world is replaced by this one.’