'Aw shit, Sam.' Caruso muttered as he manhandled his friend into the apartment and out into the living room.
As they passed through the foyer something slipped out of Sam’s half-tucked shirt and fell to the floor. Loki scooted in and retrieved it as Jake dumped Sam unceremoniously onto the couch.
Jake struggled with his friend’s limp body for a few moments until he’d managed to get the soiled clothes off him. He tossed these into the wash and then got a spare blanket out of the hall closet to cover him up. He retrieved the beer can from the floor, then went outside and looked in the window of Sam’s car. The other five cans of the six-pack were on the front seat, still in their plastic binding. Satisfied that Sam wasn’t going to die of alcohol poisoning in the middle of the night, Jake went back inside.
Loki was lying on the floor, gnawing on his newfound toy, whatever it was. His own hangover forgotten in the excitement, Jake reached in and pried whatever it was from between the dog’s jaws, ignoring the low growls that he got in return.
'Shut up, boy,' he replied distractedly as he turned the object over in his hands.
It was a videotape. There was no jacket and no writing on the label; nothing to identify what it might contain.
Jake’s curiosity meter rose a notch.
He walked into the kitchen, the dog trailing eagerly at his heels. 'See what you did, Loki?' Jake said as he held the tape in front of the dog’s nose and indicated the saliva hanging from it. 'You got slime all over the tape. How am I supposed to watch it now, huh?'
The Akita whined as if in apology.
'Yeah, I know. You just couldn’t help it, right?' The banter with his pet helped take his mind of Sam’s condition and he relaxed a little as he cleaned the outside of the video tape.
Jake returned to the living room, slipped the tape into his VCR, and switched on the television. Settling comfortably onto the floor with his head against the cushion of the couch behind him, he sat back to watch the show.
The face of an old man filled the screen as the tape began to roll, and without having to be told Jake knew this was Sam’s friend from the nursing home, Gabriel. The man smiled and began speaking.
'Well, Sammy. If you’re watching this we both know it’s too late to do anything for me.' He smiled grimly. 'Don’t worry, my friend. I’ve waited a long time for this day. Longer than you could ever know. My time is up, but I’m afraid that yours has just begun.'
Jake leaned closer to the television, his interest aroused. The old man was talking as if he’d passed away. Could that be why Sam was so upset? Because Gabriel had died?
He glanced over his shoulder. Sam looked half dead himself. His head was thrown back at a strange angle, his mouth agape. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, the illusion would’ve been perfect.
Shaking his head in sympathy, Jake turned back to the screen as the old man resumed his speech.
'I know you didn’t ask for this, and I know if you had your choice that you wouldn’t want it either. But there is no choice here. You must do as I ask. You must! You’re the only one who might possibly understand, the only one who won’t dismiss the entire story as pure nonsense.'
Say what?
'You’ve got to believe what I’m about to tell you. I know it’ll be hard. It’ll seem strange, even unbelievable at first. But it is true. On that, you’ve just got to trust me.'
The old man paused. He was staring straight at the camera, and from Jake’s viewpoint it seemed as if Gabriel was staring straight out of the screen, directly at him. Though it was completely irrational, Jake had the odd feeling that even now Gabriel could in some way actually see him.
It gave him the creeps.
But what Gabriel said next was even more frightening.
'If you don’t believe me, more innocent people will die.'
Jake straightened up. Gabriel was talking about the recent murders! Did he have something to do with them?
Little fingers of unease began caressing the back of his neck.
Jake made no move to turn the tape off, however.
Just a few more minutes, he told himself.
'Remember the story I told you a few weeks ago?' Gabriel was saying. 'About the Beginning? About the Nightshades and the world before the coming of Man? You’ve got to believe me Sam when I swear to you that it was all true! Every word of it!'
'And now it is up to you to take up the fight.
'I am the last of the Elders, the last of my people. We were a brave and noble race, but when I am gone we will exist no more. We will pass out of this world and only a faint echo of our glorious times will remain, meager memories that your people believe are nothing more than myths and legends.'
Time out here! Jake thought, frowning. Nightshades? Elders? What was he talking about? It sounded as if the old guy didn’t think he was human, which was completely absurd. Had the guy gone completely off his rocker?
'As I told you before, millions died in the Great War between our two races. When it was over, only a handful from either side survived. A few of us cried out for peace between our two peoples. They believed the Elders and the Nightshades could exist together, side by side in harmony, working to rebuild a world we’d come close to destroying in our greed. But others among us, myself included, disagreed.' The old man’s fist clenched and his voice rang with remembered pain. He shook his hand in the air. 'White-hot hatred burned in our hearts and in our minds there was only rage. We swore we would obtain vengeance for our dead or die ourselves in the attempt.'
Despite himself, Jake was moved by the man’s impassioned words, even as his mind sought to deny their authenticity. It was clear that Gabriel believed what he was saying to be the truth.
He watched as the old man lowered his fist and stared at it, as if surprised to find it there. Jake could see small red half-moons in his palm where his nails had pressed savagely against the tender flesh of his palm when Gabriel uncurled his fingers.
Gabriel went on, but the passion was gone as swiftly as it had come. His voice was now little better than a whisper and thick with the knowledge of choices made in error.
'We hunted each other through the ages, neither side gaining the upper hand. Hiding from the humans who had grown in number and spread their own civilization across the globe, we continued our war in the shadows. Savage clashes occurred whenever we would meet. We fought, and fought, and fought some more, until there were too few of us for it to matter any longer. Yet still we continued. We knew nothing else by then; the fight consumed us, body, mind, and soul. In the end, it became our only reason to live.
'It continued that way for centuries, until only two of us remained. Myself, and a Nightshade by the name of Moloch.'
Gabriel’s eyes burned with fanaticism. 'He tried to flee, to escape my wrath but I was better than he. I tracked him relentlessly, never tiring in my chase. I had the conscience of an entire race on my shoulders and I swore to myself that I would not fail, that they would not have died in vain. Moloch would pay for his crimes. Victory would be ours at last!
'The chase led me here, to Harrington Falls, which at that time was nothing more than a small, pioneer settlement. Moloch had taken refuge in the home of a human, a man who sought to harness the ‘Powers of Darkness’, as he called them, for his own evil ends. I confronted the Nightshade there and the battle was intense. The fighting between us went on for days and many times he had me on the brink of defeat. Each time I would recall the faces of all those who had fallen before me and my strength would be renewed, until I could turn the situation to my advantage.
'In the end, it was him who was defeated.
'It was then that I made my greatest mistake. As he lay there at my feet, awaiting the final blow that would send him into the darkness forever, I found I couldn’t finish what I’d begun. For decades, destroying him had been the sole purpose of my life, the very reason for my continued existence. When I thought of what it would be like to live without that burden all I could envision was a bleak life, living without the company of my people. Even the world was something I no longer recognized, Man was everywhere; the last, wild sacred places dwindling by the day. In that moment of triumph, I realized the irony of my existence.
'If I destroyed him, I would in fact be destroying myself as well.
