by Troy McCombs
"Hi, I'm Sheriff Charlie Steera. I called. Hey, why don't you park right over there by the bushes? Then we'll talk."
John pulled over by a large row of shrubs and put his car in park. He then popped open his door and stepped out onto moist ground.
It had rained on and off for the past few hours; the dull smell in the air declared the likely possibility of additional precipitation sometime soon. Most of the paramedics and policemen were wearing shiny yellow overcoats, while others weren't wearing any coat whatsoever. They all looked busy, talking secretively to one another, and hiking into or out of a wooded path where Do Not Cross police tape had been stripped down...at least for the time being.
John was in awe. He could clearly see the outlines of dozens of trees and their branches silhouetted against the backdrop of powerful tungsten lights set a little farther back in the woods. Something back there was all his to explore.
"I really don't know where or how to begin." The absolute luster in Steera's voice was, like his mustache, prominent. It made the psychic want to put on his listening ears.
John, still looking at the ghostly-lit trees, responded, "Begin anywhere you like, Sheriff. I'm dying to know what's out there.
Steera walked over to him. "Well, there's a house that sits back in those woods, supposed to be haunted. I've heard many, many rumors—walk with me, will you?"
They began hiking down the trail leading into the forest.
"There are stories of domesticated animals disappearing into the woods, then coming out stark raving mad and trying to kill their owners after they had, presumably, ventured into the house. One night, a religious resident from this road swore on Jesus's soul that she saw a light blinking in the woods near that same house. 'Claims the light glowed a certain color she had never seen in our spectrum of hues. Have you heard about Oscar Carrin?"
John shook his head. "I've been out of town for quite a while."
"Brightest, most athletic kid in town. Had his head on completely straight. He went into that house while playing truth or dare. The boy wasn't in there a minute when one of his friends said he came out of the place as insane as Charlie Manson. Locked up in Buckeye Institution now. Doctors can't find out what's wrong with him. But they do say—"
John interrupted: "What I want to know is what happened now, tonight. Why do you have an army of people going in and out of the woods like it's the end of the world?"
Steera slowed in walking and took a deep breath. "Hours ago, four kids came to the house. One entered. Minutes later, he was thrown out of the second story window by an unseen force, cut in half at the waist. His friends watched him ramble on about something they can't really understand, and the boy's eyes actually hemorrhaged. Not only do I have one teenager dead, but I got one in a coma and two clinically insane—"
John stopped walking and gave the Sheriff a deeply befuddled look. He didn't believe a word of it. "Excuse me, Charlie, what are you talking about?"
Charlie stopped and looked back at him, sensing his skepticism. "It's true, Mr. Rollings. Every word."
John lowered his head. "Sheriff, you've got a serial killer on your hands. Possibly even some wild animal. Definitely not a ghost."
Steera's serious-looking eyes looked one notch more serious. Mean, even. "What I saw was left of that young man, no animal or psychopath could do. And what can make a sixteen-year-olds hair turn from blonde to milk white?"
John rubbed his chin, thinking. "It could be a few different things. How do you know—maybe these three friends of his did it. Have you ruled them out as suspects?"
The Sheriff grew eerily quiet. "I know this town. I know these kids. They're good kids. They wouldn't do anything remotely like this. For you to stand there and say they might have had a hand at this is absurd. I've lived here all my life and the only thing that's ever been out of place is that house. It's cursed. Demonic. Evil."
John shook his head again. "I've been doing my job all my life, too. Never, ever, have I seen, read about, or experienced a death by a ghost. Not by a Poltergeist or even a demon. They can injure, maim, and tear down your body and mind, but they have no authority over taking the life of a living person. It's next to impossible. It's not the dead you need to worry about, Sheriff, it's the living."
The cop sighed and now shook his own head. John didn't look away from him. Meanwhile, an EMT walked by, carrying a large clear plastic bag with something bloody, slimy, and brown inside. It was actually Evan's liver.
"There's still a lot you don't know yet, John. You see, two of my men went into the house not hours ago, and do you know where they went?"
John shook his head. As he did, a soft breeze blew past, brushing his hair away from his forehead.
Steera looked him dead-cold in his eyes and said, "Neither do I. They never came out. The second went in with a Walkie and we can't get any signal from him. Now, whether this is some kind of supernatural—whatever you want to call it—event, we need your help to fix the problem. I couldn't live with myself knowing I let another generation of kids dare each other to go in there and come out crazy or dead. I want to know exactly what's causing it, whether you believe me or not."
You will soon.
John nodded and they continued on. As they did, the battered path winded narrower, its surface littered with large pointy rocks, its sides armed arm with long, thin branches covered by hundreds of razor-sharp thorns. Each man got pricked by the onslaught of nature's renegade spikes; neither had success in avoiding them or pushing them away. At one point, a rustling noise in the bushes startled Sheriff Steera. He stopped in his tracks and jerked his head to the side, listening, looking. But when nothing presented itself, Steera continued on.
The men were almost there at ground zero, for John could see the bright and powerful work lamp light stands through the gaps between the trees. There were at least a dozen of them illuminating the clearing like a Hollywood movie set.
That's when he saw what they were illuminating...
A big, old, ordinary-looking house being examined externally by Steera's crew.
"I know it doesn't look like much," Steera said, glancing up at the attic window, "but it's what's on the inside that I don't want to see for myself."
"You're right. Doesn't look like much."
The skeptic and the believer left the shroud of the woods and stepped into the clearing. Both men gazed up at the building, Steera with slight fear, John with no emotion at all.
"We've been doing all kinds of meter tests on it. We've checked for—" Steera stopped, realizing that his counterpart was no longer walking with him... "What are you doing?" He looked back at John.
John was standing still, touching his temple with two fingers, his eyes shut. He took long breath after breath after breath, trying to concentrate. Now it was Charlie's turn to be skeptical.
A minute passed.
Another minute.
Right when Steera went to speak, John opened his eyes, knelt down, and felt the dirty soil with his left hand, as if feeling for underground vibrations. Steera almost snickered. John spoke before he did.
"I'm trying to open my mind up, to see if I can feel anything about this particular area. Sometimes I can sense things about places and people."
Charlie sighed in disgust—
"Like you, for instance. You think I'm full of shit. A matchbook psychic you regret recruiting."
Charlie crossed his arms. "Well, that was an easy one. Tell me something I don't know."
John carefully observed all the ignorant fools as they probed the windows and foundation of the house with their high-tech gadgetry, searching blindly for readings those fallible machines could never detect.
"What you don't know is that my profession doesn't rely on absolute precognition. No psychic ever had that. We sometimes feel things, see images, hear sounds, absorb others' pain...but we don't know when the world's going to end, or what the lottery is every week, or how to be perfect. Psychics have flaws. Intuition comes and goes. Clearing
the mind—Clairsentience—is the only way to really hone our skills."
"Like meditation?"
"Exactly. Or prayer."
"Did you pick up on anything just now?" Charlie uncrossed his arms.
John shook his head. "Not a thing. I'll have to go inside to be sure."
Steera sighed. He didn't want to lose another person to a house with an appetite for humans, but he knew John Rollings was his last hope.
"If you dare."
More Chester County personnel scampered around as John left Charlie's side and walked forward, straight toward the front door. The mud beneath his tennis shoes squashed and sucked him down every time he set foot into it, making him walk like a scuba-diver with flippers. A few remaining drops of rainwater fell softly against his pale, interested face. The house ahead looked as though it were supporting the unnaturally low moon on the edge of its smokestack. Its gutters were old, rusty, and filled with weeds. The two upper windows did not watch or intimidate him like those at the Wilkin's home or the Johnson's haunted plantation. Nothing about this place made him feel uncomfortable...
But what did was the large amount of remaining blood on the ground a few yards ahead which the rain had not washed away. It was the most he'd ever seen in his life. There were still chunks of meat mixed in with it, waiting to be whisked away by Steera's men.
Could it be true? A ghost, poltergeist, or demon with the power to transfer its energetic soul into a physical body? An animal or psychopath that had made the house its home and wanted to be left alone? What else was there? Something had definitely mutilated a teenager, but the culprit was still left to be discovered.
As he grew closer, the rescue crew began to gawk at him. One stepped away from a window and shook his head; another dropped his mouth open and widened his eyes; another crossed himself. John started thinking that he, himself, was crazy going into a battlefield without knowing what he was up against.
But he continued forward, getting closer and closer to the small front porch. No unusual vibes crossed his senses. No menacing sensations made his heart beat faster. No unpleasant images burst into his working mind.
"He's not going in there, is he?" a nearby man in a lab suit whispered to his acquaintance.
"Jesus God, Charlie must be crazy to tempt fate again. Two guys went in and didn't come out!"
"Wait! Sir!" A young police officer stepped forward to prevent John from going any farther.
Charlie stopped the nervous rookie from inhibiting Rollings' progress.
John slowly and cautiously walked up the remaining five stone steps. The porch he stepped onto looked homey enough, the old wood beneath his feet bowing in just a little. The windows on opposite sides of him were in near-immaculate condition and were impossible to see through from this angle or this time of night. The battered door ahead was open just a tad, its white-painted surface cracked and peeling with age. Still, there was no evidence in John's mind that this abode was in any way infested.
But when he reached for the knob, he stopped and looked back. Every man and woman standing in the clearing—all of them—had stopped what they were doing to watch him. Over twenty pairs of eyes were waiting to see him disappear from the face of the planet, and he was the only one who didn't believe it. Charlie Steera, sweating bullets, nodded for him to proceed. He did.
John grabbed the knob, opened the door, and entered.
The inside was a whole different ballgame. The air smelt extremely rancid, filled with a plethora of stinks impossible for him to identify. It was organic but unlike anything in nature with which he was familiar. And despite the massive lights blazing through the clearing outside, the inside was a few degrees above pitch black. The windows were neither tinted nor covered with drapes, but blocked any outside rays well. Only in broad daylight would one be able to see clearly. A flashlight was what he needed now...
...except he didn't want to leave to get one. He felt suddenly drawn to this house like a moth to a light. It was an overwhelming emotion he had never felt before, not in any previous haunted house. He could not begin to understand it.
He slowly reached out, found a wall, and felt his way farther into the room. Luckily, there was nothing in the way, nothing for him to trip over—just a wicked smell as potent as Acetone but somehow more bitter than vinegar. In fact, he could taste it. He could now taste the smell. It burned and felt cold all at once, filling up his airways quickly and heedlessly. It felt unpleasant but exciting. He couldn't breathe, but he could really breathe. He was tasting an odor that no human, man, or organism had ever before encountered. He didn't know it yet, but it was affecting the nerves in his face, then in his arms, then in his feet. Soon, he felt prickles in his fingertips, his gums, and his heels. That's when he started to freak out.
As John thought of retreating through the door, he heard a loud BAM. The door was shut—had shut on its own. His mind began to swim with the scent, the taste, the overload. His body couldn't handle it.
He bolted to the door but tripped over something that had not been in his path before. He fumbled around on the ground, feeling around for something to latch onto before this house killed him. Loud, banging, thudding noises invaded his ears—like battering rams against castle walls. He heard a voice admixed with the continuous pounding; a voice calling his name. Familiar yet new. Then his hand managed to grip onto something hard, slimy and round lying on the floor. With unknown air matter choking the life out of him, John realized what was in his grip: a protruding bone! It was attached to the skinless, tissueless, chewed skeletal remains of one of Steera's late officers.
"John! John answer me! John!" It was Steera's voice, filled with urgency. He and his men were trying to break the door down from outside. They eventually broke it open and removed John from the building, saving his life before the tasteful odor killed him, but after he had lost consciousness.
***
"John? John?" It was a meek man's voice, faint and distorted. There was no urgency in his tone of voice, only softness. Consciousness slowly floated back to the groaning psychic lying on a hospital bed. John opened his eyes. In his blurred vision, he saw the glowing white, brightly-lit silhouette of a male figure standing over him. Is this guy an angel?
"What the..." John went to sit up.
The doctor, an older oriental man with bronze-colored skin, laid a hand on his chest.
"Easy there, pal. Don't move fast or hard just yet."
John lay still, trying to remember what had happened...darkness...the house...Mayberry...I didn't believe...
"You had us quite scared," the doctor told him, checking his heart beat with a Stethoscope.
"I couldn't breathe...?" John took a pan of his surroundings. He was definitely in Lecorrd Hospital. This was the only hospital in the area that had private rooms this large and this bright. It was also the same hospital his mother had died in years ago.
The doctor smiled. His teeth were in bad shape, yellow and brown, probably due to years of smoking. They almost matched the color of his skin. "You were choking when they brought you in. It's what was in your lungs that interests me."
John began to sit up again. The doctor helped him. "What was it?"
The doctor sighed, as if he didn't want to go into detail about it; but he did, anyway. "Lord only knows. If you had been wherever you were for any longer, you would have likely died. When they rushed you in here, you were foaming at the mouth and in spasms. Your eyes were open, but you weren't aware. Your face had blistered, although now it is in normal shape."
"What was I choking on?" John needed an answer.
The doctor paused again, flustered. "Whatever it was, it turned to gas before we started to pump it out of your system. It was in your airways, your stomach, and had somehow gotten its way into your nervous system. The thing is, one of the paramedics said that the fluid you were coughing up in the ambulance was burning holes through the metal floor and gurney bars, but not through any of the paramedic's hands while they were working on you.
Five light bulbs in your ER room burst when this stuff changed from liquid to vapor. It had a strange bluish color. I've never seen anything like it."
John was at a loss for words. Every bit of knowledge and wisdom he'd ever gained through the years was kaput. There was no label for this, no available answer. No ghost, ghoul, demon, angel, poltergeist, devil, or ancient monster released such a substance—especially not one that could do what this doctor was saying. And never in twenty some years had John Rollings been more curious, more determined to figure out the many pieces to this particular puzzle.
"Am I okay to go?"
The doctor went silent. Then:
"Yes, you're okay to go, but I would like to do some more tests on you, just to see if there's any trace of the chemical compound still in your body. Urine samples, blood samples, the works."
Without responding—without knowing how to respond—John got up and left. Away went his most intriguing patient, out the door, taking with him minute amounts of chemicals which perhaps could have won him the Nobel Prize in chemical science.
"You're alive!" Charlie's loud, fascinated voice startled John as he entered the hospital hallway. The Sheriff was standing against the wall by a vending machine, visibly exhausted from a sleepless night. His face was pale and dark circles dangled under his blood-shot eyes.
John immediately halted in his footsteps and turned. "Christ, Steera, what happened?"
"Isn't that the question of the day? I would really like to know, myself. First, we heard you fumbling around in the house, gasping for breath. So we broke in the door and found you lying there, clutching onto what we believe were Jake Stoll's remains—a nice young officer from Blake County. No blood, no muscle, no nothing was found but his bones, of which had small amounts of some kind of strong acid all over them. It's like something had digested him. Second, we tore you out of that cursed place. You were screaming the whole time about 'the creatures, the creatures', and the things bordering the fifth sense of human conception. You spoke of a beast with twenty-two eyes, of a smell worse than the Black Plague of Britain, and of a physical nature beyond the world—"