by Steve Lang
Martin invited my father to move onto the Breswell Estate because the two men had become friends and the property meant protection for my family. My father and I lived in a cottage beside the tennis courts where we had privacy, and we were all protected by a ten foot high brick wall with iron spikes on top that, until they noticed us, sealed the world out. On occasion, someone would figure out there was a house out in our woods and try to scale the wall. The cameras and alarm systems operated on solar power, so if anyone came within ten yards of the wall I knew about it and would head to the roof with Fate, my .50 caliber rifle. Click, boom, another one bites the dust. Of course, I knew my previous killings had been building up bad karma like a man using a credit card without a job, but when you’re good at something and you need to protect your people you do what you have to. I had been building up a great debt in souls with no idea how much pain would come back to me from my actions.
One day we ran out of meat to eat, so I headed out early in the morning with a 30.06 rifle and a penlight and wandered for hours, looking for a deer or a rabbit, or anything else. Although I was an expert marksman, I had never been a hunter. However, we agreed that we would never resort to something as evil as cannibalism. While I was out, I stumbled upon an ancient graveyard that had been lost in the woods long ago, and in the center was a large mausoleum that looked like it was meant for an extended family member. Curiosity got the better of me, and my luck had been terrible on the hunt thus far, so I walked through the moss-covered headstones.
I cleared the dirt from one stone and it read Genova Holvern 1671 - 1692 Tried and found guilty of witchcraft. I looked at another one, and the same inscription was beneath the name of Selena Delano 1669 - 1692, and another Hanna Fries 1669 - 1692. I was standing in a graveyard full of dead witches and the dates were from the exact same time the Salem witch trials had been carried on in Massachusetts. If these poor women had been buried out here in the yard, then why was there a mausoleum, and who was in it? I sidestepped the headstones, as late afternoon shadows began to fall over the ancient stone garden and came closer to the mausoleum. It had been well constructed by someone with a lot of money and looked like the Roman Pantheon but much smaller. Mist crept in around my feet, obscuring the ground the closer I came, and I began to hear whispers, like static from a radio transmission out of range. This building, where an unknown number of dead were interred, should have scared me I suppose, but instead I was intrigued. Moss dangled from the roof, swaying in a light breeze while darkness embraced me in her ethereal arms.
The steel gate was locked from the outside with a rusty chain and padlock. I thought about how to get in and my mind turned to the gun slung across my back. Something moved in the yard just to my right, and I swung around in a fluid motion with my rifle drawn, but I saw no target. Whispering voices continued to call to me as I stood at the gate wondering what lay beyond. Suddenly, as if my body were guided by an unseen force, I stepped back into the darkened mist, raised my rifle, and shot blind at the lock. My aim was true, and the lock fell to the concrete platform with an audible chunk. I approached and opened the gate. Inside there was a stairwell constructed of granite leading underground, and I used the penlight in my pocket to illuminate the passageway. The high walls were made of limestone, lined with torches about every fifteen feet, and I felt like I had descended for an hour before reaching the bottom.
A large steel door lay at the bottom of the stairs. On the face of it was the engraved image of a gargoyle, its faced contorted in a silent scream, and what looked like hieroglyphs at each corner of the door. I assumed that whoever, or whatever lay inside was meant to be left alone. I found a small handhold on the right edge of the door and pulled back. The door squealed and creaked as it dragged on the granite floor. I was inside. The whispers were louder now as I searched the tomb with my tiny light and found a coffin in the center of the room. On the lid were the words Here lies Abigail Thorne necromancer and whore of Satan.
"Ooooopen it!" Someone whispered. I was in a trance.
I found a latch and opened the coffin. What happened next was both terrifying and exhilarating. The room filled with a violent shriek as if the gates of Hell had been opened and legions of demons set free.
"ALIIIIIIVE!"
I jumped and raised my rifle, turning in every direction, and backed toward the door.
"Don't go. You freed me from imprisonment."" A female voice spoke.
"Who are you?" I said.
"In life I was Abigail Thorne, a healer of the sick, but now I am vengeance upon the world, a sharpened blade draining the blood of men."
"What are you going to do to me?" I struggled to remain calm.
"You are a warrior queen, and we are in your debt, Suki. Thank you for releasing me at the time of judgment. Your world will burn, we have seen it and that is gooooood." Abigail said.
"Ashes to ashes" A voice whispered from behind.
"Dust to dust." Whispered another.
Eight cloaked figures materialized, forming a ring around the room behind me. The coven had risen. Abigail's corpse lay still in her coffin as her voice filled my head, and then her specter appeared before me. She pulled back the hood of her cloak and what I saw was a beautiful young girl with blood red eyes swirling with clouds of mist. She flashed a haunting grin at me.
"Go now. You'll find a slaughtered deer outside the graveyard for you and your family. For releasing us from imprisonment, we'll fight with you when the time comes. We are one now."
Abigail bid me farewell and vanished with the rest of her coven. I almost asked Abigail what had happened to her, but decided against it, because intuition told me that meeting could have gone far worse. I found the deer as she predicted, hanging from a tree, its throat slit ear to ear, and drained of blood. I dragged it back home through the forest, and when I arrived we cleaned the deer and ate well for the first time in days. I kept my experience in the woods to myself, but what the witches had said continued to haunt me. What did they mean when they said our world would burn?
We struggled onward as society continued to decay over the coming weeks, and my ordeal in the graveyard faded from memory. Lootings, arson, and random killing were on the rise, and I believe the breaking point came when the prisons, already overcrowded and unfunded, began to release their convicts into society. The state and federal governments could no longer afford to feed and house these people, so they were turned loose. The U.S. prison system was anything but a rehabilitation center; instead it turned petty thieves, drug addicts, and potheads into hardened criminals. Teenagers, and young men and women convicted of petty crimes were thrust into a world of fear, pain and violence run by murderers, the mentally ill, and rapists. The American prison system was the ultimate terrorist training camp, and now the inmates were free. A federal corrections facility was located near the estate where we all lived, and so it was no surprise to me when one morning a large crowd of men began scaling Martin's walls.
I headed to the roof and began doing my thing with Fate, while the others took up positions along fourth floor windows. One, two, three, they dropped as more came over using ladders to get past the spikes. Somewhere along the way these men had come across the ingredients for Molotov cocktails, and must have raided a gun store, because they were strapped and fires were erupting all over the property. We were being sieged by madmen. I escorted my father and Martin out the back door after the first flaming bottles crashed through the windows downstairs. I remembered the witches’ promise.
Overwhelmed, we had to ditch or burn, so Martin, Peter, Cynthia and my father followed me as we fled to the forest, and I rediscovered the graveyard. I could hear men in the woods behind us and could smell their fires burning as we all ran into the tomb. I led the way downstairs, and this time the torches were already ablaze. The door was still ajar and inside I could see Abigail’s coffin. Resting on her skeletal chest was a medallion in the shape of a wolf’s head. The mouth was snarling and it had glowing red eyes.
"S
uki, take my talisman and put it on." Abigail’s ghost said.
Her voice crept out of the darkness like unseen fingers raking my spine. I reached into the coffin and took hold of her necklace and as soon as I did her skull fell to the side. The wolf’s head had a demonic, powerful, and terrifying appearance, and I grinned as those blood red eyes glowed with the fires of hell. I put it on and saw the frozen eyes of death in my mind’s eye. A moment later, Abigail and her cloaked coven appeared in the room with us. They became like mist and entered the talisman around my neck.
“You are the harvester of sorrow, make them pay!” Abigail screamed.
Her voice was inside my head as I dropped to my knees in an all-consuming inferno. Fire spread through my body as if I were a field of dry wheat in high summer. I screamed and convulsed on the floor for several minutes, but the sensation felt like an hour. When the pain subsided and my eyes opened my father had his hand on my arm.
“Suki, are you alright?” He said. His eyes were wide with concern.
“Yes… I think so, what happened?” I asked.
“You put that necklace on and fell to the floor screaming. I was terrified for you.” He said.
I stood and looked him in the eyes, watching his face form an expression of fear and disbelief.
“What happened to your eyes? My god, it’s like you’re crying blood.” He said.
I felt power surge through me as the souls of the women infused with my spirit.
“Wait here, everyone.” I said.
I walked up the stairs as tiny bolts of electricity danced on my fingertips. Men were gathering near the door with rifles, and torches. They had already begun to torch the woods. I walked out of the door and into a circle of a dozen convicts who laughed and slapped each other on the shoulder.
"Look boys, a little girl. I want her first. I ain't had a woman in twenty years." One screamed. The others laughed and began to place wagers on who would have their first go at me. I waited calmly. For a few moments nothing happened, and then the leader told his men to get me. I throat chopped the first man who came near me and he dropped to the dirt, gasping and clawing at his broken neck. More of them came, and I easily countered their attacks. Men fell around me like broken cordwood as my arms grabbed, tossed, and punched. I was in a murderous trance until I heard a deafening gunshot ring out. A tall, lanky man had fired over my head into the doorway, and as I turned, I saw my father drop to his knees, his mouth working like a puppet, but without speaking. He held his stomach and I saw the crimson blossom spread out on his white shirt before he fell over. My mind could not comprehend the horror. What had he come out of hiding for?
“Noooo! Daddy!” I screamed.
His eyes glassed over as death took him. Bloody tears of rage streamed down my face as the men stopped advancing. In a fit of rage, I suddenly levitated off the ground. Storm clouds rolled in like an approaching army of doom while electric sparks shot from my fingertips through the air connecting with their bodies; first one, then two, and then all of them, in a spiritual massacre of hatred. I felt their hearts stop beating through the current as rain began to fall in torrents. I was out of control, unable to stop until they burst into flames and exploded in every direction like meat sack bombs. When I regained focus, my feet touched the ground and I realized that my father had also been in the path of destruction and his body was no longer there, but a pile of ashes, left in the wake of the flames. Martin, Cynthia and Peter had been electrocuted when water flooded the tomb, and in my lightning fit I had inadvertently killed all three of them.
I loved my father and Martin's family very much, and they were all I had in the world that was good. A new world was awakened when I became possessed. Now I walk in a world of shadow, locating others with powers like mine as I travel from town to town, alone. A world of miracles not seen for over fifty thousand years is upon us and those, like me, who have the gift, will inherit the earth.
reborn
Memories of past life experience are considered nothing more than dreams. Is that the truth of the matter?
Shaun found himself in a waiting room with a group of three other people who were wearing white robes, and slippers. He could not remember how he had arrived and the others seemed to be just as confused as he was. A coffee table on his right was covered with Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan magazines. They never have anything for guys, he thought. Shaun looked over at a very pretty woman with long brown hair and soft features. He recognized her, but did not know from where.
"Pardon me, ma'am, but do I know you? My name's Shaun." He asked.
She looked up from her magazine and he felt a spark shoot between them. Her initial reaction was to look at Shaun with disinterest and mild annoyance, but then her expression changed to a friendlier, familiar demeanor. She quickly softened, put her magazine down, and fixed her gaze on Shaun.
"Let me ask you something, Shaun. What do you remember before coming here? I mean, to this waiting room?" She asked.
"Well, I was the pilot of a spacecraft, and then I hiked some mountains and captained ships at sea. I remember light brown beaches so long they stretched beyond imagination, and children playing in the surf. It's an odd assortment of memories, really. They all seem somehow disconnected at the moment. What about you? What were you doing before you came here?" He said.
She took a deep breath, noting the similarities in her own memories.
"My most recent memories, before this waiting room, were of living along a golden coastline, hang gliding from high mountains, and sailing the seas in search of adventure. But that was my heaven. Before that, I painted nature, raised three children, saw the world from cruise ships, and took excursions to ancient cities that are no longer in existence. I can remember those same coastlines, and for some reason, I remember you. Your face is so familiar." She said.
Shaun eyed her with a suspicious, troubled glance, and then looked away. He felt a strong connection to this woman, but what she had just said had confused and alarmed him. It was true, she did look familiar. But why?
"What's your name?" He asked.
"Bethany. It always has been." Bethany said.
Shaun's eyes suddenly lit up, and in his mind's eye he could see the two of them meeting as teenagers long ago. Shaun stood to give her a hug. She returned his embrace, and then pulled away.
"What's wrong?" Shaun asked.
"Well, I've been sitting here for I don't know how long, and then you appear, and a flood of memories just returned. I mean, I couldn’t even remember who I was before right now." She said.
"Me too, until I heard your name I couldn’t remember who I was. You have any idea what we’re doing here?"
They could hear static on a loudspeaker mounted high on a wall on the other side of the room.
"Number 42 please, step through the door labeled Observation." A voice said.
A man with a mustache, a pasty complexion, greasy disheveled hair, and a round belly, who had been staring with a blank expression at the colorless white wall before him, looked down at the right flap of his bathrobe and saw that the number 42 was embroidered upon it. He rose, looked around with a confused expression, and nodded to Shaun and Bethany before walking to the door. As he opened it, a flood of color and noise escaped into the waiting area, and just before he disappeared they saw him smile.
"What’d you think he saw in there?" Shaun asked.
"I don’t know, but whatever it was must have been more interesting than these magazines out here." Bethany replied.
There was just one other woman in the room with them, and she was thumbing wildly through a Vanity Fair magazine. She was frail, and very old. Her arms were so thin that Shaun imagined they were nothing more than toothpicks covered in skin. She tossed her magazine onto the table and picked up National Geographic, and began to read it quickly, too. Her expression of distress stopped Shaun and Bethany from talking to each other.
"Is there something I can do for you, ma’am?" Shaun asked.
She put her head in her hands and began to weep loudly.
"Are you OK?" Bethany asked.
The woman did not answer and began to cry harder.
Shaun sat in the chair beside her and placed his hand on her back.
"It’s OK, you know? Everything’s going to be alright." Shaun said.
"I don’t know what these things are. They appeared here one day while I was staring at the wall, but I don’t understand their significance. I touch the people but they never move or talk." The woman said.
"Those are magazines, you know. Pictures of people with stories and ads to sell people crap they don’t need? These look like they’re from the mid nineteen nineties. How long have you been in here?" Bethany asked.
"What’s your name?" Shaun asked.
"I don’t know, and they never call me. Others have come and gone, but they never, ever call me." She answered.
"What are they calling people for? What’s on the other side of that door?" Bethany asked
"I don’t know, but once you go through you never come back." She said.
"Oh my!" Bethany whispered.
Shaun could tell Bethany was becoming fearful and got up to put his arm around her, then kissed her on the cheek.
"Don’t be afraid. I’m sure whatever’s over there will be fine. I just wonder if that’s the way only out of here." Shaun asked.
Shaun looked over and the door labeled Observation had disappeared. There was nothing but a blank white wall. He walked over to the wall and began to feel around where the door had been. Nothing remained. There were no seams, or hinge marks, or covered up screw-holes. It was as if the door never existed. All four walls were just as bare, but he figured he had nothing better to do, so he inspected every square inch.
"I’ve tried getting out before. Nothing works. You’re stuck till they call you." The old woman said.