by M Purcell
father. I never told anyone this before Bill, I felt it was not my place to talk about a friends personal feelings But now, under the circumstances, I will tell you what made Pete dislike guns so much." The captain spoke calmly and deliberately in a soft voice to detective Shriver,"You see Bill, back when we were kids, there was a boy named Charlie Stokes. He wasn't a bad kid. He was good with his hands, liked to tinker with things and would fix all of our bikes when they broke down. Well, his father was an avid hunter and had a good-sized collection of guns. One day, his father came back from hunting, put away his guns but was called away to the phone before he locked the gun case. Young Charlie seized the moment to admire one of his father's pistols. He was turning it in his hands and must have accidentally hit the trigger with one of his fingers. The gun fired one shot. It went straight through the boy's chest, piercing his heart. He died instantly...he was Pete Wells cousin, and they were very close."
"Detective Shriver closed his eyes, "God, no wonder the man hated guns his entire life. So then, if he never owned a gun, or would even touch one...where the hell did that pistol he fired come from sir?" The captain looked at Shriver, "I don't know Bill, but I am sure as hell going to find out." He started to turn back to the pistol that was lying between Pete Wells legs, "Get this gun down to the lab. You get me every bit of information that you can on it. Make sure that the lab boys pull out all the stops. I want to know where the hell that gun came from, and how Pete Wells got his hands on it." Looking down at the gun, the captain's eyes widened. The gun was gone, seeming to have just vanished. "What the hell is going on here, it was there no more than two minutes ago? You and I are the only two people close enough to remove it, and we did not. How the hell does a gun simply disappear into thin air Bill" The detective looks down in disbelief, "This is too weird sir. I don't know. I just don't know" The two policeman just stared at each other. Neither one speaks.
Chapter 5; Nightmares
The plane touched down on the runway. Almost immediately the blue sky turned dark as night. A flash of lightning so bright and blinding shot down from the darkness, spraying tentacles of electricity around the airplane. The ground beneath us seemed to shake, as a breathtaking clap of thunder boomed through the air around us. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the phenomenon was gone. The skies were once again blue, there were no clouds to be seen in any direction, no distant rumbles of thunder. Odd I thought to myself, looking for a similar response from any of the other passengers. All of the other passengers seemed to be totally unaffected by the strange occurrence. One might think that I was the only passenger whom even experienced it, but that's silly. Anyway I have business to attend to here, so enough mind wandering and get back to business Donald Lemore.
As I stepped off of the plane, looking around me. I saw nothing unusual, but a rather modest town It seemed odd to me that there would be an airport in the middle of a small town, but then we live in an odd world. Besides, I have a business meeting to attend to here, and that is all that matters. I had no luggage to pick up, only the suitcase in my hand carrying business material concerning this transaction. I walked through the tiny airport to the exit doors and stepped outside. There was no loading or unloading signs, no cabbies vying for a position to pick up new arrivals, no signs at all, in fact, except for one..."Main Street." People were walking in each direction, going about their daily business. Strange as it all seems, I like this, it suits me just fine. This is a town who seems to get right down to business. In fact, this town is so small, I don't even need to hail a cab to get to my meeting. I'll just walk straight down the main street and follow the numbers in the direction of the building where my meeting is to take place.
As I walked, I noticed a small Park across the street. I was very early as usual, so I decided to have a seat on one of the park benches, and collect my thoughts for the meeting. I noticed a group of small children coming my way, maybe a half-dozen or so. They were laughing, skipping and teasing each other as kids do at that age. Suddenly, they stopped, directly in front of me. There was no more laughing, no skipping or tomfoolery. They just stood there staring at me. Their faces were very serious, as if something were wrong and needed to be dealt with, before they could continue on their way. Out of the group, stepped one small boy, his hair was black as the night and his eyes were blue as the sea. When he spoke to me, there was no emotion in his voice, only a tone, a tone that was stating a fact. He said simply "You cannot play here. Your kind has to play over there." He raised his right arm and pointed a finger at a tall concrete building across the street.
I felt a chill run through me as I looked over at the building he pointed to. I felt certain that it was the building where my meeting was to take place. I looked at the boy and said, "Of course. You are right young man," adding, "I'll be on my way now." Crossing the street towards the building, I could feel everyone of those kid's eyes watching me in silence, making sure I go play where my kind play, before returning to their own play. What a strange town this was I thought. Approaching the building, looking for the number on it, already knowing that this was indeed the building where my meeting was to take place, of this, I was certain. As the numbers on the building came into focus, I was filled with dread, but why, they were only numbers on a building, nothing more, nothing less. There etched into the concrete were the numbers '666 Main Street.' I reached for the door and touched the handle to enter. It suddenly grew dark, clouds rolled in quickly to blight out the sun. In the distance, I could hear the steady sound of thunder getting closer, a flash of lightning blinded me momentarily as I stepped through the doors and into the building.
Entering the building, I felt unnerved, shaken even, by the previous events that led up to this point. I was sweating profusely and felt very uneasy, almost afraid to be inside of this place. I looked around and saw nothing, no doorman, no reception desk, no stairs or hallways. The room was completely empty. A huge chamber filled with nothing but the walls, the ceiling and the floor. The walls and floor were of the same color, scarlet red, the color of blood. When I looked up at the ceiling, it was as black as coal, except for two large eyes that were painted on it. However, they were not just painted onto the ceiling. They seemed real, and they were following my every move with interest. Then, the eyes started to blink, to cry and shed tears....tears of blood, which dripped onto the floor below. As each drop fell with an echo, one after the other, through the chamber like room.
I looked into the room and could see nothing but darkness. The walls drew inward into the darkness, a long foreboding tunnel. Then, a voice spoke out to me, only it sounded like many voices speaking in harmony, "we have been waiting a long time for you Mr. Lemore."
"Who are you, what do you want from me.." I asked of the voices, my own voice trembling with fear.
"We are the ones that play here Mr. Lemore, and now you've come to play too."
"No," I screamed back to the voices, "I'm getting out of here right now, do you hear me, right now!"
I turned to run out the door I entered through, but it was gone. Now there was nothing but a window there, which I slammed into trying to make my escape. I could see that on the other side, life went on as normal. People were walking back and forth, going about their business. Across the street in the park, the children were back at play, all except for one that is. The young boy who spoke to me earlier, he was standing away from the rest of the children. He stood staring at this building, staring at me, in fact, and he was smiling now. His strikingly blue eyes began to grow bigger, into an almost cartoon-like animation. Stunned by this vision before my eyes, I watched the boys eyes grow larger and wider until they were no longer eyes at all. They had become two brightly glowing blue flames, flickering an eerie, spectral phantasm. I could see something moving within them. Fear gripped my body, I told myself to turn away from this ominous vision.
Mesmerized, I continued to watch, looking deeper into the flames of the boy's eyes. I began to make out shapes. Forms that I recognized from somewhere...bu
t from where. Panic suddenly rushed through me, fear beyond anything I have felt before. As I realized that the forms were those of demons. As they have been depicted by the Bible, Dante's Inferno, by every artist who ever lived, and by every writer of horror and hell. I turned to run, not knowing where to run, or where I was going. I just had to run, to try and get out of here. As I ran, I heard splashing from beneath me, the kind you hear when running through a puddle of water. I looked down, and saw that my shoes were covered in blood. The entire floor was covered in blood, as were the walls dripping in it. Sheets of thick, and bubbling up red ooze, down to the floor it crept. There it mixed into a pool of putrid, vile slime. It all seemed to emanate from the crying eyes on the ceiling.
I frantically turned to find an escape route from this madness. Then to the right of me, I caught the glimpse of a woman's hand reaching out to me. A familiar voice spoke to me, "come, this way, quickly." I ran to the outreached hand and grabbed hold. It seemed the only hope I had at this point, so I took it. As I grabbed the hand, a body and