The Seducer: A Gone From Daylight Inspired Story - 7. William Harker's Journal: Entry 7

§ §

Saturday, September 8, 1989

Mike saw that I was still in a funk so he took me to a new place (to me) up in the City. It’s called The Trocadero Transfer and it was definitely a place to which I knew I probably shouldn’t have been going. It has a 21+ policy and bouncers aplenty to enforce it, but . . . Mike made me an ID! Maybe, I shouldn’t be putting this down on paper, but - yeah. I can get into almost anywhere now! I’m more mature than my babyface likes to make out, though. I only had one beer and didn’t imbibe the entire bottle of whiskey Mike nearly demolished singlehandedly! I’m not sure Mike’s going to have a liver for too much longer binging like that! Sheesh!

That said, he does seem to have a ‘hollow leg’ as my Dad calls a drunk that can get away with drinking a lot and only end up drunk rather than passed out with alcohol poisoning. In any case, for this reason, he ended up not being the best companion for the evening since he was, pretty much, a space cadet through most of it after that.

It concerned me because he’d driven us up there. I could have driven us back, but I’d have had a time of it. I’ve not driven San Francisco before and with no Thomas Brother’s Map I don’t know where’d I have ended us up. Probably Oakland!

But, much to my relief and surprise, a damsel came to my distress! I was surprised because, Number 1: she was a girl in this club of mostly guys and, that said, I’m not too sure all the girls I saw in there were actually girls at all! I was later to find that this was a Gay club! Well . . . San Francisco and all. Number 2: she singled me out of all the other nice looking dudes in there!

Her name is Katrina Vanzing, I know I’m spelling the name right because she gave me one of her fancy business cards! I’d love to tell you more about her, but that’s the strange part. . .

. . . I can barely remember much after our meeting! I’d say I got blasted last night and that’s why I can’t remember anything, but I really don’t remember having more than that beer! I really can’t account for this . . . lost time.

To be honest, the only reason I remember Katrina at all is because I still have her card and I still have the memory of our initial meeting and the strangeness of her singling me out of crowd of truly handsome guys in there. Maybe I was scoping her out or something and that attracted her since, I figure, not too many of the other guys in there were interested.

This is weird and pretty disturbing, I’m telling ya! It is a very disconcerting feeling not being able to remember a whole pocket of time between your being somewhere and suddenly waking up in your own room in your own bed like it was all a dream!

§

You know, it’s funny that the last word I put down before falling off to sleep was ‘dream’!

I just woke up from a doozy of one! It was actually more of a nightmare - a terrible one at that! I’m still shaking and sweating! It . . . seemed so real!

In the nightmare, I was walking with two people beside me. I wasn’t frightened by them because I knew them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t make out their features in the dark! One was a male and the other female and I seemed to know both though the female was new to me.

I remember how dark everything was! It was like inky black dark like during a blackout or something. Then I perceived a dark shadow move against the sky. The sky was just bright enough to be brighter than the surrounding darkness. Whatever it was it was big! Not like an owl or a bat or something, but big . . . big like a man! A man who could either fly or leap from one building-top to another with ease! But, not unlike a bat, the man-thing seemed to have something spread out around itself that were like wings!

I immediately think of, like, Batman since I just saw that movie a few weeks ago! It’s possible I got that all mixed up with whatever was going on in the dream, but, I wouldn’t know why I’d find Batman so menacing. He’s a good guy!

But, I felt a dread fall on me like the cold night air suddenly getting more chill! It felt like when the famous San Francisco fog suddenly descends upon the city making everything colder and wetter. I kept trying to get the attention of my two companions, but it was like they weren’t hearing me or they were just ignoring me because I’m such a ‘kid’ to them.

Then in two bright flashes of lightning I saw the wall of the building we were walking next to get instantly painted with blood! It was sprayed with it! Once and then twice and then . . .

. . . I was all alone . . . in the Dark!

My two companions were just - gone! Gone like they’d never existed! All I could see was the blood on the walls and some on the street where we had all been together! I saw this as the street lights slowly came back on casting an eerie yellow light on the scene.

I woke with a start after that! The memory of the nightmare is still so fresh in my mind! That rarely happens to me! Nightmares tend to fade in the first few minutes after waking up from them. But not this one! The memory of it is etched in my mind in raw detail!

There was something else in that dream . . . a part I dread remembering, but I can’t get out of my mind! The most terrifying part, actually!

I remember seeing up the street in the darkness, just before my friends disappeared, two piercing red glowing eyes staring at us! They blinked a couple of times and then - Gone! Gone and then my friends were gone too!

Just gone . . .!

I don’t think I’ll sleep for the rest of the night! I hope I don’t wake Mike up. Come to think of it, where is Mike? He’d usually be back by now. Didn’t this Katrina gal drive him back too?

I wonder where he could be?