From Darkness

From Darkness

By Matthew Benefiel

From Darkness

Published by Matthew Benefiel at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Matthew Benefiel

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Third Doctor

Chapter 2: The Museum

Chapter 3: A Psychological Disorder

Chapter 4: How it All Works

Chapter 5: In Preparation For

Chapter 6: Problem Solving

Chapter 7: Devonshire Road

Chapter 8: Triumphs and Trials

Chapter 9: The Inquisition

Chapter 10: Setup

Chapter 11: Discoveries

Chapter 12: Running in Circles

Chapter 13: Pieces

Chapter 14: Troubles

Chapter 15: Spinning Wheels

Chapter 16: The Impaired

Chapter 17: On the Run

Chapter 18: Clarification

Chapter 19: A Cold Feeling

Chapter 20: The Butlers

Chapter 21: Explanations

Chapter 22: The Rocky Times

Chapter 23: The Asphyxiated Press

Chapter 24: New Life

Chapter 25: Struggling Onward

Chapter 26: Distant Memories

Prologue

Larry Drake stood looking at the mountain of his son's accomplishments that now stood ready for the gallows. Instead of pride there was anger; and where the heart should be feeling whole, it only hurt. He looked over the pile he had made and saw nothing but the past: pain and regret. His son had brought it all back and in so doing had brought this on himself. Larry still despised the day his son came home from school having solved the English teacher's mystery story in two minutes, a record of course, and declared he was going to be a detective. Larry didn't have to think about why he felt this hatred for his son's choice of career. It was Larry's younger brother all over again. Memories too painful to bear had begun to resurface.

He remembered the day his brother had come up to him and stated he had found an old article telling a story of a long lost treasure, stock piled by a train robber during the settling of the west. Together they searched libraries, interviewed those of the older generation who had grown up with the stories. Eventually they dug up enough information to find a six mile area of woods that was the most likely place for such a treasure. They searched for years. Larry gave up, eventually moving on to more mature things, but his brother never gave up.

Six years later Larry had come home from his first job to find his brother so excited he was almost agitated. He convinced Larry to come with him to see his finding. He had found a cave; a small opening that dropped down deeper than their flashlights could shine. It had been hidden under a bush. The excitement had been great. His brother had found a long rope and Larry let his brother down, but his hand had slipped…his brother fell and could not be heard. Larry had run home crying and told his parents.

The police found the body after days of digging; having to make the opening bigger. He had died from the force of the fall. No one blamed Larry, or at least they said they didn't; but he had let go of the rope. Everyone knew that. He had been the older mature brother, and he had let them all down. He lived each moment of those days in sorrow and anguish. But he had paid his debt; and worked hard to move on.

Robert had dug it all up again. He had found an article of a treasure found during a rescue mission. How it had been given to the city and used to build the city up and entice companies to move in; how it had brought the makings of a great city, from a tragedy; a family in mourning, bringing about the joy of society.

Robert, like his uncle couldn't stop, he found out more and made the connections. He dug up the past. Larry could hear the small voice in the back of his mind warning him, trying to scream past the sorrow and rage to tell him his error; but to no avail. Bitterness and regret run deep in some people and Larry's last conviction fell with his last tear and became justification.

He struck his match and tossed it on the pile. The paper from all the journals and newspaper clipping caught first. Then the detective kits, the chemistry set, and everything else caught. Even metal became deformed from the heat of the fire as it roared up; licking at the past hungrily.

Robert ran up then. The pain in his face changed to tears as he watched all his work over the years; the experiments, the cases he had followed, his whole hobby and dream all went up in flames. The tears ran as he stared into that blaze. Larry wanted to cry, but he had done that already. He had to teach his son this lesson; Robert had to change his course and pursue other endeavors, this was the only way. He watched his son as his tears came, then went. The last tear dropped and Robert's eyes hardened. He stood up straight and without looking at his father he turned and walked away.

The chasm was opened, and though Larry knew his error, his own troubles kept this truth from light. The chasm would only widen, for one does not open a sore and close it quickly; and a wound uncared for only become worse. So it was for Robert and his father.

Larry walked into his home when the last embers died. He saw his task through to the end and was sure it would come out right in the end. His wife, Janice, was standing in the kitchen. She had been crying. Larry walked up to her and hugged her. She hugged him back and they stood for a long time thinking their separate thoughts. Janice was forgiving in her sorrow while Larry was less forgiving in his self-righteousness. Together they still remained whole in a broken world.

1: The Third Doctor

Robert woke up lying on a hard bed, a table with railings really. He hated sleep studies. He hated doctors more. With eyes closed he knew the third doctor sat there staring at him. Three doctors in two years and nothing to show for it, that was Robert's plan. They all treated him like the child he seemed, but he knew more. The first doctor had been a simple school counselor. Seems kids these days have problems: for Robert it was the dreams, nightmares that left him paralyzed. The first doctor called them seizures, so did the second doctor.

The first and second couldn't cut through Robert's tactics, it wasn't in Robert's interest to be crazy. He didn't let them know about the apparitions he saw, the people that weren't really there. School was hard enough, he was already the looser. He found his way out of those men's efforts to control his mind.

But this third Doctor was the doctor that in two months had put Robert through more paces than he thought he could handle. This sleep test had been the worst so far. Depriving him of sleep for two days and putting him through mental and physical tests before letting him sleep on the third day. That had led to a nightmare. The nightmares were not uncommon, especially after he and his father quit talking, but they had been decreasing before this third doctor, so he was a little disconcerted that this third was on the right track to breaking him down. Thankfully he had learned to deal with these dreams and even with the hallucinations that in the past had accompanied these fitful dreams the day afterward. He hoped fervently those wouldn't return.

Robert finally opened his eyes. He often thought back on events as such, with eyes closed, not allowing any to see his reactions. He remained calm, breathed deeply, and above all did not jolt awake. Sure as the hairs on the back of his neck that told him so, the evil Doctor was sitting next to Robert, staring at him not much different than Robert's father stared at the torn down engine of his 74 corvette, trying to figure out why the thing would not turn over when put together. Of course Robert didn't feel like a corvette engine and he didn't feel like talking to the doctor at the moment.

Robert waited for the Doctor to speak, but he knew he wouldn't; even more so than the other doctors this one liked it when the patient was uncomfortable. Plus Robert knew they were monitoring his heart rate and brain activity. He knew Robert had been dreaming and Robert couldn't control his dreams…yet.

Anything to report Doctor? Nothing.

You know I visited SODM last year, this being the third time I might add, and nothing new came up. It seems I was just a young kid succumbing to childhood fears.

Mr. Drake, however much I applaud a man facing his past fears, I also caution that one must be careful doing so. You can find healing there, but you can also disillusion yourself into thinking you've faced your fear when you merely scratched the surface and there is something greater, something deeper at heart. In your case I believe you've only discovered a way to talk well above your age.

Robert had to admit there wasn't much of a response to that answer so he nodded and said thank you.

On the other hand I do think this SODM place is of interest to me and I would like you to go again, but this time I will attend as well, and we will run some of the same tests we have been running the last couple days as the results I find mildly interesting. That is all for today, you may go home now.

Robert got up and dressed leaving the doctor sitting behind taking his notes. He confirmed to himself that this doctor was evil. He was unpredictable and if anything he was going to be the cause of Robert's next breakdown. Robert grimly laughed to himself as he left and went out to the front of the office where his mom was waiting for him. Maybe in the end he was just scared of being in someone else's control.

Robert and his mom headed out to the car in silence. Robert didn't really like talking after his doctor's visits and his mom had grown accustomed to that, as well as the plain fact he never gave any answers to questions anyway. Robert could almost sense that his mother was coming over to his side in all this, but she wouldn't stand up to her husband, his father, and Robert couldn't say he disagreed, however much he wished she would.

On the drive home, it being Saturday morning, Robert thought over his dream. Now that the Doctor wasn't reading into every expression made and every movement down to the pulse in the neck, Robert found the dream fascinating. His mind had taken a conglomeration of all the terrible events from the last years and crammed it all into one big mess: the nightmares and hallucinations, the fallout at school as his homework was left uncompleted and his grades fell, and his father's bizarre reaction to his talent in piecing clues together. Of course his father's guilt of his brother's death was the cause for that reaction, and however much Robert conflicted with his father, his heart at least had a small grasp on the pain his father must have felt. Unfortunately, his father's past was not his and he wouldn't change for it. On the other hand, the dreams and hallucinations were something he had every intention of changing, and it was time for a change.

2: The Museum

Here at SODM, that is the Study of the Deranged Museum, you will find only one cold, stone building. This building, built up here in 1982, is not much to look at. It is entirely made of concrete, about the size of an 1800 square foot house, and with not much décor. The concrete is two feet thick and even then is not much help up here in the mountains when it gets cold. This structure was not designed to catch the eye of the beholder. As you will see in a moment, this was in fact a prison, a prison designed to observe the mentally deranged in close proximity, but far from any civilization. The idea came from the FBI agent, Bartholomew Gatchet, who is most known for personally catching Trent Frennur, the mass murderer who was at large less than 10 years ago.

Robert thought back to those words he heard three years ago. Even now, as then, he chuckled to himself at these words and the lady giving them. She had looked like the prototypical stewardess on any given airline, or at least how the movies and TV shows wanted people to think about them. It was clear even at his younger age that she was given the job to distract people from the clumsiness at which SODM had been put together as a tourist site. Everything from the Whispering Roots to even the building had a kind of you could visit this if you had nothing left to do feel to it. And yet it still had held a kind of appeal. Everyone in the area, in Colorado Springs even, had known about Trent Frennur. After all it wasn't ancient history yet and Trent Frennur had been the most feared serial killer in the whole US. So naturally the place managed well enough for the first couple years, but slowly it had fallen to ruin and finally abandoned a year ago after the locals couldn't control the vandalizing. This was Robert's fourth trip in fact and he actually found it more foreboding now than ever.

Yet that foreboding sense had an energy and excitement to it. Imagining Bart Gatchet going from a mere policeman to becoming the key to helping the FBI track down and capture Frennur; then moving on to this place to try and understand why a man could commit such atrocities. The things that happened at this place, the interrogations and information that passed that the tourist weren't allowed to know, even the museum workers; then finally the death of Trent Frennur when he fell from the helicopter that was relocating him after the closure of SODM. Those were the things Robert pondered.

He remembered the first trip to SODM when he had heard that tour guides non-convincing tone as she tried to work around the clumsy lines she was paid to say. He remembered his parents saying they were going to visit the already failing venue and how Robert was at first disappointed on such a waste of a trip, but gained some interest when he and his brother Ryan read the pamphlet and moved on to research Trent Frennur prior to the visit. They had heard of him, but not much more than that he killed some people. It was that time with Ryan and then the trip that led to Robert's desire to become an FBI agent or the like. He found the museum fascinating as he read between the lines, combining the knowledge he had learned beforehand with the lack of information or even blatant lies the museum deemed useful to push onto the lessening crowds. In his ponderings Robert even imagined the derelict building as it had been, with Trent Frennur and the agents assigned to study him.

These last thoughts had led to his panic attack and seizure when he had then walked down the small hallway that led to the holding cells. There the far wall held the straps to hold Frennur and other criminals to the wall for interrogation. Even now as Robert walked in the dark abandoned building and down the hallway he still felt the same chill go down his spine. He could still see the different criminals in their cells and Trent Frennur strapped to the wall, staring at his interrogators as though they were his victims and not vice versa; planning their ruin while he merely passed idle time. Robert did not panic this time though, nor faint. They were ghosts of his imagination and he had since passed the worst of that stage of his life. These figures were not there, nor moving and talking as they had his first visit. He was healed.

In fact the worst part of this visit wasn't the dark un-powered building nor the rotten tree trunk full of holes; the one that if you held your head down to it you could hear the whispering of Trent Frennur himself as the wind sighed through the morose looking structure; the whispering roots. No it was his doctor that sat on the old sturdy desk the guards had used to monitor the prisoners hallway, the single remaining piece of furniture that was hard as a fossil and bolted down to the concrete as if to survive mankind himself. The doctor was himself a piece of work and one who Robert knew was going to destroy his life in years to come and even now was beginning to wear Robert down. His grades had begun suffering even between his sleep study and this trip.

The doctor sat there as fixed as the desk and stared at Robert almost as if he was Trent Frennur himself, trying to bore through the meaty flesh into the heart, to find the source of this