The Glimpsing

by James L. Black

  “What the hell is going on here?” Jack complained.

  The man did not look up. “I’m not certain.”

  Jack gave the man a harsh, probing stare. He questioned, “Is this a dream?”

  The man slowly looked up and stared around the bedroom, glancing up at the ceiling, looking over his shoulder. Finally, he returned his gaze to the floor. “I hope not,” he said quietly. “That would spoil everything.”

  But Jack wasn’t so certain, especially since the last thing he recalled was falling asleep downstairs in his theater room. “Who are you?”

  The man took a deep, shaky breath, then exhaled, seemingly in an effort to gain control of his wits.

  “Do you hear me talking to you?” Jack asked frustratedly. “What are you doing here?”

  The man slowly rolled his head in Jack’s direction. With exquisite calm, he said: “I’m going to kill you, Mr. Parke.”

  “What?” Jack chuckled, noting the man’s weakling features and generally poor condition.

  The man strained his eyes shut and began rubbing his temple with his hand. He groaned as if in some kind of discomfort. “Do you have a cigarette?”

  “A what?”

  “A smoke.”

  Jack paused a moment, a bit thrown by the question. “Behind the bar.”

  He watched the man rise, walk behind the wet bar, grab the pack of cigarettes Jack kept there (he was only an occasional smoker), and light one. The man took several deep and sustained drags, savoring each one with immense and obvious pleasure. Taking the cigarette with him, he returned to the bed, sat down, and faced Jack, clearly more refreshed.

  “I can see you’re disappointed,” the man said.

  “Disappointed?”

  The man motioned with his cigarette. “No Rose.”

  The look on the man’s face struck Jack as pompous. “You might say that.”

  “I know what she told you, Mr. Parke. But she’s not what you think. She’s not a gift.”

  “No?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “Then what is she?”

  “A weapon, Mr. Parke. A trap.” He added, “For men like us, anyway."

  “Men like us? You and I have something in common?”

  "Oh, absolutely."

  “And what is that?”

  He took another drag on the cigarette. "We both want it, Mr. Parke.”

  “Want what?”

  “Consummation,” the man said, letting the word roll from his lips climactically.

  Jack only blinked at him.

  “You’re obsessed,” the man continued. “And she means to use that against you, make you sleep with her. But take care, Mr. Parke. I intend to save you from that nightmare.”

  Jack squinted at the man. There was just something so gnawingly familiar about him. “Have we met? Why is it you seem so familiar to me?”

  The man thumbed the cigarette, flicking ashes to floor. “I’m not important, Mr. Parke. Rose is important. What she means to do to you.”

  “Are you… from her world?”

  “No,” the man said. “I’m from yours.”

  Jack blinked at him again. He then leaned forward, eyeing the man even more intensely. “Who are you?” Jack asked with great suspicion. And then, continuing to gaze at the man, it finally came to him. He turned away, peered at the painting… and was not at all surprised when he saw that it was not Rose who was missing this time, but the man who had been browbeating him earlier.

  Jack reared a bit, confounded. “It’s you.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Parke. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Jack chuckled. “But you do want to kill me.”

  The man winced toward a smile. “It’s for your own good.”

  “Well, I appreciate your concern, but I rather enjoy being alive.”

  “No,” the man said assuredly. “Considering what’s coming, you're much better off dead.”

  They peered at one another, eye to eye in mutual silence for a moment. Then the man extended the cigarette to him. Jack hesitated, staring at it, then accepted. He took a long drag, gave it back ,and then blew the smoke in the man’s direction.

  “You have a name?”

  “Thomas.”

  Jack frowned. “What?”

  “Thomas,” the man repeated

  “Thomas what?” Jack asked impatiently.

  “Thomas McCain.”

  Jack was in disbelief. “Skewer?”

  The man snapped his head at Jack, clearly irritated. “What did you call me?”

  “I said Skewer.”

  “Why would you call me that?”

  “Because of what you did to Holly Grace.”

  The man shifted on the bed uncomfortably. “And what did I do to Holly Grace?”

  “You murdered her. Stabbed her to death.”

  The man peered at Jack as if he had been belted in the stomach. And then, as if from nowhere, his face almost seemed to fall apart. His lips began to quiver, and a tear spilled from the corner of his left eye. “I would never do such a thing, Mr. Parke. Never. Do you understand that? I… I loved her.”

  Jack found himself terribly confused. He wanted to believe that he was dreaming, that his mind had merely taken Gabrielle’s story about Thomas McCain and Holly Grace and weaved from it this nonsense spectacle, but all of this felt no different than his prior encounters with Rose. And as such, he had no choice. He had to accept what was happening for exactly what it seemed to be: Thomas McCain, the wanted murderer, was now sitting just beyond his feet.

  Thomas’s face was now a sour grimace. “Is that what everyone believes? That I killed her.”

  Jack nodded.

  “How can they be so gullible?” he cried. “Why can’t they see the truth?”

  “You didn’t kill Holly?”

  “Of course not! I couldn’t have.”

  “What do you mean you couldn’t have?”

  “What happened to Holly was one of the most violent things this city has ever seen. She was stabbed over fifty-times. Four wounds penetrated Holly’s sternum, Mr. Parke. Four wounds where the knife went right through the hardest bone in the body as if through butter. Fourteen wounds entered her stomach, punctured the vertebrae, and even exited her back.”

  “I know the story.”

  “Then you know I couldn’t have done it. Look at me. Look at how thin I am, my arms and legs. It would have taken someone twice my size and three times my strength to inflict wounds of such a barbaric nature. Don’t you understand that, Mr. Parke? Don’t you see?”

  “Maybe you hired someone else to do it.”

  “The police aren’t blaming someone else! They’re blaming me! Even though the truth is right in front of their eyes.”

  “You know who did it?”

  The man looked at him tearfully, nodding.

  “Then who? Tell me.”

  The man seemed about to speak, hesitated, cast a quick glance in the direction of the painting, then took a rather desperate drag on the cigarette, which was now little more than a smoldering butt. “I can’t, Mr. Parke. She won’t let me.”

  “You mean Rose won’t let you?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack eyed him suspiciously. “You’re blaming her for what happened to Holly?”

  Thomas said nothing.

  Looking at the pitiful physical specimen before him, Jack couldn’t help but doubt Thomas’s ability to kill Holly, too. He actually felt pity for the man. Maybe he really had been the victim of a false charge. Maybe Holly’s real murderer was still out there somewhere. All these things Jack was beginning to believe, until he recalled something that virtually proved Thomas really did kill her.

  “You never touched Holly?” Jack asked. “That’s what you want me to believe?”

  “That’s what I want everyone to believe, because it’s the truth. I would never harm her. She was everything to me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Jack said, almost cutting him off. “You did kill
Holly, didn’t you, Thomas?”

  “No,” Thomas protested, the very suggestion provoking more tears. “Please understand. I—”

  “I know you killed her, Thomas. And do you know how I know?”

  Thomas gazed at him quietly, then shook his head.

  “Because not less than two minutes ago, I sat here and listened to you threaten to kill me.”

  Thomas gazed at Jack flatly, then reached up with a sleeve and slowly wiped away the tears, first from one eye and then the other. He dropped the cigarette to the floor and mashed it out with his foot. When he spoke, the words came out cold, without a hint of emotion. “I told you, Mr. Parke. I didn’t murder Holly. I loved her.”

  “Is that what you told Holly before you took her life?”

  The man gazed at him blankly for some time, then turned his head and peered out the bedroom window. “It’s going to be bad,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The storm,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a bad one.”

  Jack peered out the window as well and was surprised to see a mass of black-gray clouds spreading out above the horizon. He then felt a cool hand lightly grasp his ankle. He looked at Thomas, who was gazing back at him with eyes so hollow they made his skin crawl.

  “You’re not going to understand what I’m about to do, Mr. Parke. But in the end I promise, you will thank me.”

  At that, Jack felt Thomas’s grip tighten around his ankle with such unimaginable force that it made him cry out in pain. He yanked Jack down, so quickly that his arms went flying out to his sides. Instinctively, Jack dug a heel into the mattress trying to stop his descent, but Thomas’s strength was overwhelming. He dragged Jack to himself as easily as a stuffed doll.

  Thomas shot his free hand to Jack’s neck and began to choke him. The force was unthinkable. Jack’s mouth shot open reflexively and his face contorted in agony. He began a loud, raw gag.

  Thomas brought his other hand to Jack’s neck, squeezing with such force that Jack’s eyes bulged, his face went beet red, and a livid vein went corkscrewing across his forehead.

  Jack grabbed Thomas’s wrists, desperately trying to yank away the man’s suffocating grip, but they were as immovable as iron bars.

  Thomas repositioned himself over Jack, placing a knee on the bed for better leverage. Drool had begun to roll out of the right corner of Jack’s mouth, some of it pearling over his cheek and onto Thomas’s hand.

  For Jack, the moment seemed wholly surreal. He kept trying to tell himself that none of this was really happening, but the desperate heaves of his lungs and the halo of intense pain at his neck convinced him otherwise. It was true, Thomas McCain, the murderer, the man who had butchered Holly Grace, was now taking his life as well. What had seemed impossible just moments ago—that such a runt of a man could possess the strength to take anyones life—was now an obvious truth. Thomas himself had killed Holly, skewering her bones, piercing her sternum. And how? Because he possessed supernatural strength. Because he was not human. Because he was not of this world.

  There was a light clicking sound, his trachea being crushed. That was followed by a pain so sharp and expansive that Jack thought Thomas might have actually taken his head off.

  Feeling a loosening of consciousness, Jack did his best to fight, beating his fists into Thomas’s arms and elbows, trying to dislocate them. He desperately clawed at Thomas’s face, hoping he might be able to find an eye and gouge it out. He bucked his body wildly, flailing his legs, thinking a knee or foot might accidentally connect with the man’s head and stun him long enough to force him loose. But it was all to no avail.

  And then Jack saw another amazing horror. It was Rose, stepping into view just over Thomas’s right shoulder, looking down on his barbaric deed. And she was smiling, broadly, enjoying what she saw, delighted by it. And then he realized: this was all her doing, all part of her plan. She had sent Thomas, liberating him from the painting for this very purpose. Thomas McCain was her executioner.

  A black shade began creeping in at the edges of Jack’s vision. A darkness. Death. He tried to scream out in protest, but his windpipe had been pulverized. He once more bucked his body, flailing a leg high into the air, kicking wildly. And Thomas only continued choking him, pressing him into the mattress, his face completely calm and unaffected.

  “Don’t fight it, Mr. Parke.”

  Jack tried to rouse his hands once more, tried to find Thomas’s face again, but his arms only hung limply at his sides.

  “It’s okay,” Thomas said in a comforting whisper. “Very soon, it will all be over.”

  Please, no, Jack pleaded in his mind, as he saw the darkness creeping in, obscuring Thomas’s face until only his eyes remained. Then, even that faded.

  Thomas McCain continued brutalizing Jack’s body for another full minute after his eyes had gone stiff. Finally, he let go, watching the corpse slowly slide from the bed and clomp loudly onto the floor. It’s mouth was still yawing open, as if in stunned disbelief.

  Thomas then slipped from the bed and squatted over him. He grabbed Jack’s chin, turning it until he faced him.

  “I’m not sorry for any of this, Mr. Parke. As I told you before, you’re much better off this way.” He was about to stand and walk away, but bent down again. “And there’s something else I want to make perfectly clear to you, Mr. Parke. I never murdered Holly Grace. I never murdered anyone.”

  CHAPTER 18 – STRANGE THINGS

  The eye of the digital projector twinkled silently in the dark of the theater room. The movie playing on the screen was now The Shining. The scene was that of little Danny Torrance, all alone, riding his tricycle carelessly through the antiquated halls of the Overlook Hotel.

  The camera follows close behind little Danny as he rides through dank chambers lit only by the pale-blue glow of florescent lights, and turns blindly into one constricted hallway after another. The music, dark and terrifying, spikes occasionally with screechy violin strokes that call to mind mice put in skittering flight.

  Little Danny doesn’t see them until he takes that final turn. The tricycle stops cold. Danny’s eyes bulge in fright. For deep in the distance of an eternally long hallway stand two small schoolgirls attired in baby blue dresses. Their faces are pale and ghastly, flat and as round as a moon. They hold one another’s hands, blocking Danny’s way.

  “Hello Danny,” they chime in eerie unison, their voices echoing wildly throughout the hall. “Come and play with us.”

  It was to that gruesome plea that Jack Parke awoke on the theater room floor, suddenly sucking in a huge gasp of air like a corpse startled to reanimation. His hands immediately shot into the air, trying to claw an enemy that now only existed in his mind. He hissed a raspy “Nooooo!” and then began coughing violently, with each convulsion swearing he could still feel the impression of Thomas McCain’s hands around his neck. He struggled to a seated position and, realizing it had all been some peculiar dream, buried his face in hands that trembled uncontrollably.

  Then he heard them again, the two macabre sisters chanting a dirge so wicked that it made his every hair stand on end: “Come and play with us… Come and play with us, Danny… forever… and ever… and ever.”

  Haunted by their call, Jack turned to the screen and watched as a wide-eyed Danny began to “shine,” seeing a horrific vision of the two sisters’ slaughtered corpses lying jigsaw in a sea of blood. The sight brought Jack’s sorely scarred psyche to a state of near complete panic. He turned away, rustled to his feet, and ran as fast as he could out of the theater room.

  He bolted from the East wing and hurried into the kitchen, where he yanked a bottle from a wine cabinet, sloppily poured himself a shot, and gulped it down. He wiped the residual from his mouth, poured more, drank more, and then in a fit of anger, hurled the shot glass into a wall.

  He glanced up at a clock: 11:37pm, then jumped when he caught sight of a blue-white flicker in a window. Lightning.

  He stormed out
of the kitchen, into the foyer, and began leaping up the staircase three and four steps at a time. Something very disturbing was happening to him, and none of it had begun until he’d brought that damned painting into his house.

  When he had reached the top of the staircase, he froze immediately. The hallway leading to his bedroom was smothered in darkness. Only vaguely could he even make out his bedroom door.

  He took a step toward the bathroom, reached in and flicked on the light. The resultant amber glow caused the hallway to brighten, but only dimly. It now looked haunted in some way, and that, at least for the moment, tempered some of Jack’s rage.

  He took a deep breath and began toward the door, easing along cautiously. The door was slightly ajar, and he peered anxiously at the long sliver of darkness in the crack. He couldn’t resist imagining that he’d push the door open only to find Thomas McCain’s bony form sitting on the bed bathed in moonlight, peering at him with that murderous calm, intent on finishing the job he’d clearly failed to complete. Jack’s heart began to pound like a hammer.

  Reaching the door, he placed a palm on it and pushed. It coasted opened without a sound. His eyes were immediately drawn to the bed, the scene of his own murder. The covers were disheveled, the pillows tossed here and there… but no Thomas. He thanked God. He cast his eyes on the painting and saw that all of its occupants were present. He thanked God once more.

  He quickly moved to the end table and flicked on the lamp. Without removing his eyes from the painting, he picked up the phone and dialed Gabrielle’s cell. For the length of their conversation, he refused to look at anything else.

  “Hi,” Gabrielle answered, sounding worn out. “I was just about to call you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just got back to the hotel. The shoot was exhausting. I—”

  He cut her off. “I want you to tell me something.”

  “Okay,” Gabrielle said, a bit caught off guard.

  “I want you to tell me everything you know about Thomas McCain.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Thomas—McCain,” Jack said, enunciating each word. “What does he look like? Describe him to me.”

  “What… what’s going on?