by Troy McCombs
The sounds grew louder, annoying clatter coming from the kitchen, then pouring into the living room. They were upon him, right behind him, about to extinguish the life from his body. He reached for the window and flung it open, eyes wide and excited. But the life drained from his face even faster than it had appeared, for through the opening there was neither grass nor dirt, nor tree trunks nor bushes...only a black freezing void leading to nowhere. Through the closed, upper portion of the window, however, he saw treetops and sunshine, a distant rainbow and soaring pigeons. Reality and otherworldly were horribly intermixed to create a diabolical deception of a freedom he was not meant to join again.
"What in the fuck is this house?" A simple question not directed to himself or derived from utter shock, but to ask it to the very source: the house, itself.
He could feel something behind him, not touching him, not hurting him, but something indeed there to make its presence known. He did not want to turn around, but he did, anyway, drawing one last breath. Then he faced it.
It was some sort of plantlike creature, wet, slimy, shiny, its tentacle-like tendrils constructed from millions of smaller twigs covered with layers of foliage. He wasn't viewing the thing as a whole; the rest of its body was still either residing out in the pantry or in the basement. Only its three long, pliable, porous limbs were stretched around the corner of the kitchen doorway. There was no telling just how big it really was, and George didn't intend to find out. Its petal-like suckers vibrated, making a low rumbling sound as the hundreds of them sensed the intense heat emanating from this bizarre earthly life-form. He was just as strange and alien to it as it was to him. He backed up so far against the window that he thought he was going to fall through it. Sweat dripped off his chin. The tips of the winding tentacles grew close to his face. Garlic-smelling-slime oozed onto the floor in thick, gooey strings. He just hoped it was going to kill him now if it was going to kill him at all. The real torture to George was not knowing what it wanted to do.
"Please," he muttered, his bottom lip quivering. As soon as he said it, the tip of the middle, fatter tentacle split in half, then into four, like a blooming flower, opening up to reveal its terrible inside: four rows of hallow, dark-brown, razor sharp teeth.
George wet his pants. Tears flowed down his face along with the sweat. He clinched his own teeth as those before him readied themselves to plunge into his skull. He held onto life for one last moment. And, in that last moment, something happened. George thought he had died, been killed instantly. He thought the loud noise was the natural transition from life to death.
It wasn't.
The tentacle with the mouth screeched in agony. It was hurt. Something else had attacked it.
George turned forward and opened his eyes, stunned. Hundreds, maybe thousands of the insects from the kitchen, were crawling and jumping onto the tentacles, feasting and gnawing on its coat like termites on wood. Their tiny fangs drew green-colored blood from its appendages effortlessly. Multitudes more flocked into the room, joining the feud and attacking the beast they thought was responsible for squashing their friends with those big black rubber boots. The boots were, in fact, closer now to it than they were to George.
He slowly backed away from the mayhem, shaking his head, and muttering the word, "No." His mind couldn't take anymore. This was culture shock at its worst. He was standing between two completely different life forms from two completely different worlds and was watching as they battled each other to death.
The tentacles spurted blood and wavered through the air like broken vacuum hoses, trying vainly to shake off the bugs that weren't going away. Some of the nimble insects actually began burrowing holes through the massive being. George could see their beady little eyes glistening at him. The sound they made as they chewed was like a Dremel tool cutting through redwood. He could tell they were territorial in nature, don't fuck with me no matter how much bigger you are than me, organisms. The thing they were destroying was a thousand times their size, which was probably why they had the upper hand. It was far less mobile, and had no effective way of weeding their great army off its large figure.
George just stood there, motionless. Tentacles flew through the air, crashing into walls and breaking banister railings with tremendous force. At one point he ducked under the mouthed member and stumbled to the ground. Once there, some bugs saw him and scurried his way. A few ran up his pant leg. The first bite felt excruciating. He stopped receiving any more by swatting them away and standing back up.
The green monster groaned again, its teeth clinching together. Quickly, before it sustained any more injury, or even death, it looped around the doorway and headed back down into the basement.
George wasn’t aware of himself shaking his own head. He screamed when something soft and firm wrapped tightly around his bicep.
“Whoa, George, it’s just me—John.” John Rollings was standing at his side, holding onto his arm. “We’d better go now.”
Less than two seconds passed when they emerged from the Mayberry House, unscathed but shaken up. Everyone in the clearing looked up at them as if they’d just returned from death. Everyone was surprised there were any survivors at all. Nobody expected one, let alone two out of the four.
“Oh my God...” one man gasped.
“They’re alive...” another grunted.
John helped George down the porch steps and toward Steera, who was standing over by a smoking monitor.
John nodded to the Sheriff. “Call an ambulance. He’s traumatized.”
Who wouldn’t be? The psychic thought to himself. He could barely hold onto his own marbles anymore. He had just encountered a beast more powerful than Lucifer. But he didn’t want to think about that right now...or really anything, for that matter. He wanted to go home, spend time with Lucky, and get in a good fifteen-hour-night sleep.
“Are you okay?” someone asked John. It was Vaul. He was standing over by a large oak.
John did not answer. He didn’t know if he was okay. He didn’t feel like a part of the world anymore, or his own body. The Mayberry House—Prestillion House—whatever the hell the horrible structure was, was taking a toll on him. It was bleeding his emotional and spiritual juices dry.
“Are you all right?” Steera laid a hand on John’s shoulder.
John started, swinging around quickly and fearfully.
“It’s okay, man, it’s just me.”
“Sorry.” John’s eyes glazing over.
“Are you okay?”
“Bill and Bud are dead. One crushed to death, the other...”
“Maybe you should see a doctor—“
John interrupted: “I just want to go home. That’s all.”
Vaul phoned in an ambulance for George. Charlie and another soldier helped John back toward the Sheriff’s SUV. During the walk, Rollings could feel the solid cold stare of D’kourikai watching him the whole way. He did not look back at the house once. In all honesty, he never wanted to again.
Chapter 12
"You sure you will be okay, John?" Steera pulled up to the curb beside the United Apartment Building moments later.
John gazed ahead through the windshield, mouth ajar. "Charlie, I saw something today that is going to haunt me 'till the day I die, and there's nothing I can do to change it. I won't be able to sleep well again. Ever. There is no remedy to comfort the feelings I have. What I saw doesn't have feelings the same way we do. It is made of only one complete emotion, period. To feel it is worse than death, worse than birth...worse than the worst thing you can imagine. It wants to eat my every emotion, good and bad. I have no protection. My mom was wrong."
"Your mom? Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't worry about coming out tomorrow. You need a day off."
"There is no day off for me. He's watching me now, and listening to our conversation as we speak. I'll see you later."
John got out of the vehicle and shut the door. Steera rolled down the passenger-si
de window. "John!"
He turned.
"Take it easy."
John nodded, turned, and entered the building. Charlie watched him go, then drove away.
Rollings stumbled through the dimly-lit hallways of the apartment building, half awake, half asleep. The doorways on either side reminded him of those in the upstairs of the Mayberry house. The distasteful lighting made the place look more inhabited than occupied. As he neared his room, he began to wonder if he was back there again...trapped, immobile, confined. Soon, however, a sweet, pleasant odor overwhelmed his senses and cleared some of the clutter from his mind. It was the scent of a burning incense stick. It was not just coming from a nearby room; it was coming from his room.
John immediately thought the worst, and even thought of going back the way he came. Had it followed him here? Could it transport itself through time and space? Or was it something else?
He tip-toed to his room, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and readied himself to confront the enemy. Swirls of smoke poured out into the hallway, and the smell of Jasmine made him wonder if what or whom had broken into his room maybe was an ally.
With one quick, loud shout, John jumped into his room like a trick-or-treater trying to scare someone on Halloween. He did just that. The person standing on a small folding chair by the window fell to the floor with a quick, loud shout of her own.
John flicked on the overhead light.
The girl looked up at him, a startled look of horror on her dark-complected face. It was the same Native American girl John had bumped heads with in the hall only a day ago. In any case, he felt no animosity emanating from her.
"Please." The girl's voice was uneven but kind. She sounded, above all, very embarrassed. "This isn't what you think."
"It looks like you broke into my room, miss. I could call the cops right now—" He noticed the brand new dream catcher hanging from his only window. This poor girl was, as he had sensed, just trying to help him.
But how did she know?
"Please, there's no need to call anybody. Just give me a few minutes to explain and I will leave. That's all I ask. I assure you, my intentions were good."
John closed the door behind him, walked over to the fallen girl, and offered her a helping hand.
She took it. He helped her to her feet.
"My name's John—"
She interrupted: "Yeah, I know who you are. My name's Jennifer Stockwell. I live right down the hall from you."
John let out a deep breath. "Now would you mind telling me how you know me and how it pertains to my current situation?"
***
The two sat across from each other, John on the bed and Jennifer on the folding chair, about to delve into deep conversation. For a while neither said a word. As soon as John opened his mouth, Jennifer finally made a sound.
"I never had the gift. Neither my parents nor my grandparents ever had the gift. Not even my great grandparents had the gift. Sometime in the past long ago, two of my ancestors had it. They were very intuitive, so I've been told, and were very powerful Indians who knew more then, than some Freemasons know today. They could look into water and see the past or the future, and could leave their bodies just by chanting certain phrases for a few moments. They even had secret herbal recipes handed down to them by the Gods...potions that gave them special powers no human is supposed to be able to possess. I know all this from what my granddaddy told me years before he died. Everyone in my family believed their 'gifts' were just strange 'flukes', merely like red rain. Some of my family refuses to talk about them at all, believing that they were partly demonic. I never thought that. I always thought they were special and that we could learn from them. I thought that their abilities were given to them so they could benefit mankind. Nobody in my large family has had any glimpse of psychic visions for centuries...till now.
She drew a breath. "I have been dreaming about you for the past two months, your place in the world, and I do not know why. At first I thought it was just random reoccurring dreams of you, some guy I saw around these halls, but when I started seeing visions of my granddaddy standing at the foot of my bed, I no longer knew if I was awake or dreaming. He told me things about you without actually saying a word. He said you would need my help with the upcoming battle of 'adjacent dimensions'. He showed me things in your past that you regret, and small glimpses of the future—basically no more than snapshots of things to come. Still, I remained unconvinced, thinking I was simply crazy, but then my vision came true..." Jennifer produced a newspaper clipping and handed it to John. He looked down at it.
It was a photo of Scott Weiman, the same boy who'd seen his buddy Evan crash through the window of the Mayberry House over a week ago, back when this had all started.
Or had started again.
Scott looked psychotic and was wrapped in a strait-jacket, the intensity of his eyes not unlike those of the entity John had seen earlier. The headline read, Bright Student of Chester Committed after Bizarre Tragedy at Local 'Haunted House'.
"I saw this picture, this headline, in a dream, exactly as described before this was ever printed. I saw what he saw at that house, and I saw what you've seen in your dreams. I was with you when you were flying to the nameless house in the woods. I call it nameless because a name would give it more power. It should have no name. It's evil. And in some sense, it isn't evil. Evil is a human, earthly word. This emotion is something no human has ever felt, or can even comprehend. I'm sure you know that already, though. You've witnessed a demonic force once. Demons have very negative human feelings, but this goes beyond that. Demons probably don't know about this, and It probably doesn't know or have access to certain human feelings."
John looked skeptical the whole time she talked. He didn't want to believe her, but he did. She knew more than she could have known either way, and her knowing to hang the dream catcher in his window to seize his reoccurring nightmares, which he had never mentioned to anybody, was what really convinced him. She had the air of an intuitive, and her eyes looked brutally honest.
"The dream catcher?" John motioned to it.
She smiled and blushed. "That's such an old, simple custom in my culture. It's a neat principle, really. As you sleep, your inner-self absorbs parts of the outside world. The webs of the dream catcher consume all the good energy that enters into your dreams, and all negative energy goes through into the hole, reabsorbing itself to the outside world—"
John stopped her. "It's weird you say that, 'cause when I woke up, the webs were covered in some kind of...waste."
"We're not dealing with negative energy, but an unknown one. There's no telling what can happen."
"You took it down, right?" John wondered. "The dream catcher from when you broke in—came in here?"
She shook her head. "No. I assumed you did."
John stood, troubled. He looked around the room carefully.
"Is something wrong?" Jennifer panned around the room, herself.
"Yes. If I didn't take it down, and you didn't, who did?" John went to the window and looked out to see if it had fallen, but it was nowhere to be found.
"Did you get in here with a key?"
"Yes," Jennifer nodded, embarrassed again. "My brother's a locksmith. He's a whiz with—"
John hurried to the door, knelt down, and examined the lock. There were dozens of small, messy scratches on the metal frame around it, as if someone had quickly broken in with a lock-pick or similar device. He had the feeling that someone else besides Jennifer, Lucky, and himself was in the room today...someone who didn't want him to have pleasant dreams.
"You mean, you think your room was broken into? Besides me, which I said, I deeply apologize. I am just trying to help."
John, tense and eyes sharp, panned around his room again. Nothing appeared missing, touched, or out of place. He thought back about it, trying to remember if he actually had taken it down from the window...
No, a woman's voice said in the back of his mind. It was soft, bassy a
nd distant.
His mother's.
It came and was gone, simply a minute piece of information he would have torn his room apart to find. Now he was certain someone else had intruded.
John turned back to Jennifer. He went to her. "Listen to me, Jennifer; did you see anybody today, anybody at all, in these halls you haven't seen before? Did you—"
"No. I wasn't here most of the day.”
“Listen to me. I don't want you to help me on this case. It's far too dangerous, even though I think you'd make an excellent ally. You probably don't know as much as you think you do. What I've seen that house is capable of...I don't want another death on my conscience. And now, since there's someone on the outside also conspiring against me, that makes it much worse."
She shook her head. "I must. It's supposed to be this way!"
"Miss, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into. Somebody in town, perhaps in this very building, may be helping the—“
"The twenty-two-eyed entity!" she finished his sentence, her eyes twinkling. "I'm not asking you to let me help you; I'm telling you I am going to help you, that I already am helping you. You can't force me away. And there are things, John, that I know and you don't!"
He closed his mouth and raised his eyebrows.
"How does the entity see you?" Jennifer raised her own eyebrows. "How does it keep track of you, watch you, observe you day by day?"
"Remote viewing, of course. It can see far, through walls, past time."
"Wrong. Yes, it's possible, but wrong. And that's to your advantage, our advantage."
John's eyebrows sank. "How do you know it's not remote viewing? Can you see into its world? Nobody can know that!"
"I can't see into its world, but I can see into yours. Every vibe I've been picking up from my ancestors tells me it has a mark on you. It can keep track of you because it has something that belongs to you. Otherwise, it would have killed me. If it had remote viewing, it could have seen my intentions before I had my first vision. The dream catcher worked, right? If it could see me hanging it from your window, wouldn't it have—"