by Ian Taylor
As she drove back towards the town, she began to hyperventilate and shake uncontrollably. She pulled into a lay-by where panic overwhelmed her, and she clutched the door handle as if it was a lifebelt. Finally, she wrenched herself from the car, gasping for breath, lurching as if drunk, still shaking. The shock of the confrontation with a very real entity had turned her rational world on its head.
What could she believe in now?
Images swarmed her mind in numbers she couldn’t control. Would she go mad? Had conventional life already become impossible? How would she cope? Would she lose her sense of identity? Would she forget who she was? Questions swirled through her brain like the snaking coils of abyss-dwelling serpents, threatening to plunge her into darkness.
A deer that could have been the living archetype for Bambi crossed the road in front and turned to look at her. She stared at the graceful animal and, for a long moment, they watched each other. Its docile presence began to affect her and slowly she calmed, her breathing gradually returning to normal. She stopped shaking and smiled at the deer in gratitude. This animal must be one of the good guys, she thought, remembering Greg's words, a member of the one per cent that could genuinely help you. Or maybe it was simply a young roe deer, hardly even traffic-avvy..
The deer leaped into the roadside trees and disappeared, and
she drove thoughtfully down the road into the November sunrise. It looked like the beginning of a beautiful autumn day. But her buoyant mood was tempered by the idea that it might be an illusion, an appearance that simply conformed to the framework of her expectations, while the arcane world of demons was a mere hairsbreadth away.
8
Jan, with exceedingly bloodshot eyes, drank a large mug of black coffee. She tried to call Greg, but got the familiar three beeps, followed by a continuous tone. Emotionally exhausted, she had no resistance left to dispel the growing anxiety and doubts that hammered her brain.
Who was this Gregory Houseman? Why had she trusted him? She had no sensible answers. He seemed to understand so much about UFOs and tricky spirits, but he could be a demon himself for all she could prove to the contrary. On top of this, she was worried she was losing her wits. It must have begun when she’d seen the light in the field. Then Greg appeared from nowhere. Was he a secret agent working for Hemingway? Was he monitoring her mental collapse as part of some fiendish experiment?
"Who are you Greg?" she exclaimed in despair. "Whose side are you on? Are you working for the military police?"
After another mug of coffee, she began to calm down and sat at her desk. In an attempt to make sense of the encounter with Ashtar, she starting writing in her notebook:
My mother's maiden name was Gardener. Why would Ashtar give it in French? And my father's village was a victim of coastal erosion. Why not say so? Is Ashtar trying to convince me he's not reading my mind? Because there is surely no other way to know the answers to these questions. And, as I am ever so reliably informed, the human mind is an open book to demons. I think you are one of the tricky ninety-nine per cent Ashtar. Maybe I should replace 'tricky' with the word DANGEROUS???
She tried Greg again with the same result. Frustration and despair swept through her. She grabbed the phone book, ran a finger down the list of names, and jotted an address in the notebook. How stupid. Why hadn't she thought of this before? Swiftly, she headed to the car.
Several minutes later, she stepped from the vehicle and walked along a tree-lined suburban street with large houses set back on private driveways. She imagined it in summer, under dazzling sunlight and lush rustling leaves. Whoever lived here must be making quite a stack. She stopped outside a large 1950s' semi and saw Greg's Audi Estate parked on the drive. That Greg had been living less than a mile from her top-floor flat in a fair degree of affluence–and hadn't invited her round for a cup of tea–suddenly had her furious.
An unknown middle-aged male answered her imperious knock on the polished hardwood front door.
"Can I help you?" he asked, civility failing to displace a frown of irritation.
"I'm looking for Gregory," she replied tersely.
"Sorry?" The man in the doorway looked bemused.
"Gregory Houseman," she clarified. "He's a friend." She changed course. "A colleague."
"Well, I'm Gregory Houseman," he responded with a deepening frown. "But I'm afraid I don't know who you are."
"But that's his car." It was her turn to be confused.
"I do agree with you there," he replied with heavy sarcasm. "It is indeed my car."
She attempted to control her bewilderment. Then she spotted a pile of unopened mail on a large hall table. "Have you been away?" she asked casually.
"I have," he said. "Not that it's any business of yours. My family and I have just got back by taxi from the airport."
She studied him for a moment, her brain racing. "I think … I see."
"It's more than I do," he replied, anger growing. "What exactly is your business here?"
"None at all, I'm afraid. Case of mistaken identity. I do sincerely apologise. Sorry to
have bothered you."
She retraced her steps down the drive, feeling the man’s dark deep-set eyes on her back.
When she reached the car, something prompted her to look back. A sandy-coloured Range Rover had pulled across the bottom of Gregory Houseman's drive, blocking all entry. Two large men in military fatigues were hammering meaty fists on his hardwood front door.
Jan pulled into the car park behind a city centre bistro. She opened the window and let the cool November air fan her sleepy face. Ashtar's words came back: Do not trust the man you are with. He bears false witness.
She didn't even know the man's real name. "Who the hell are you?" she yelled at the dusty windscreen.
An unnerving thought took hold. She was now completely alone, at the edge of a parallel world of which she had no knowledge, a bizarre and terrifying world removed from everyday 'reality' and so-called normal lives. What was this world’s true nature? Was it magical, like those moments she’d experienced with the deer early that morning? She was in a state of ignorance, and complete openness. On one side was denial, on the other insanity. Her state of not knowing was a bridge across the abyss.
As she struggled with thoughts and feelings, Ashtar, in Owlman form, watched from a nearby rooftop.
She sat at a corner table in the bistro, eating a mushroom omelette and drinking more coffee, this time heavy with cream and sugar. Knowing her senior editor would be worried by her silence, she keyed his number into her mobile.
She tried to sound more enthusiastic than she felt. She was concerned with offering lies, but had no other choice. "Hi Russell. Sorry I haven't been in touch, but I can tell you I'm busy with the High Barn story as we speak." As she talked, her eyes were drawn to a gaunt ravenous character at a nearby table dressed in a shabby checkered raincoat. He was consuming an enormous burger, the grease from the thick cheese-covered patty running down his stubbly chin. The man met her stare. She was repelled when she noticed his yellowed teeth were plastered with flecks of meat.
There was something unsettling about the man; he even frightened her a little. His round face had taken on a predatory cast, as if the burger he was devouring with single-minded devotion was the heart of a poor creature he’d pounced upon and killed. Goya's shocking painting of Saturn devouring his son sprang to mind.
She tried to focus on her conversation with Russell. "The fire investigators are certain the place was torched. So it was arson. I'll email you a draft asap." She made no mention of the squatters and her sympathy for them. At that moment, compared with the Half Moon mystery, squatters seemed like stale beer.
Her gaze shifted to the street, where a good-looking guy in a navy-blue tracksuit was jogging across the car park towards the bistro. She found herself smiling in anticipated recognition. But, although the guy looked a bit like Greg, she quickly realised it wasn't him. The feeling of disappointment was surprising.
&nbs
p; When she turned back to look at the man with the burger, she found him gazing straight at her. There was something profoundly disturbing about the intensity of that stare. Was he a demon? Had Ashtar sent him to keep an eye on her?
She struggled to compose herself, trying to focus on the phone call with Russell, who’d been talking for the last half minute. "Sorry Russell, I missed some of that. It's a bit noisy here. …Yes, I’m at home, but I've got the neighbours in the yard."
Drawing a deep calming breath, she peered outside and observed the same good-looking guy in the tracksuit still jogging towards the bistro. What was happening to time? Had something slipped in her brain?
She found herself drawn back to the man in the checkered raincoat, who was biting his plate and devouring it with the same obsessive pleasure he’d applied to the burger. No one else in the bistro seemed to notice. Would anything wake them up?
To her horror, she realised the man's mouth contained no tongue, but had become an orifice of flickering flames. He was a demon. She detested the sight of him so much, she’d have liked to smash the coffee mug into his repugnant face.
Suddenly, she realised Russell was still talking.
"Sorry Russell, I'm not making sense of this. The neighbours are yelling at their kids and the kids are screaming back, and their screams are shattering all the windows in the block. You'd know what I mean if you'd seen The Tin Drum. Call you back later." She rang off.
With relief, she saw that the plate-eating man was gone. Then she noticed that the place where he’d been sitting was changing before her eyes: the plastic seat and back rest were bubbling into ugly blisters, as if they’d been subjected to fierce heat.
How many other demons were passing themselves off as humans? Was the everyday world being invaded? She remembered Greg's comment that demons could get to our world at will. She had to leave. As she got to her feet, she saw the good-looking guy in the tracksuit approaching again. Was he never going to stop? Would he ever arrive?
He was jogging across the street between the car park and the bistro, then–oh horror! A car drove straight into him and she cried out in dismay. She looked out again, but there was no good-looking guy anywhere to be seen.
She felt a rising surge of panic. Then she realised she’d been looking at a ghost. She glanced at the customers but, as usual, no one seemed to have been paying attention. Was she the only one with the ability to see phantoms? What was prompting this change? Was it the residual effect of the herbal mixture? Was it Ashtar revealing new knowledge, preparing her for the building of his new world? She felt confused and frightened.
Leaving the bistro, she noticed the ravenous man standing in the street, picking pieces of her smashed coffee mug out of his face. She hurried into the car park. The place had once been a garrison site during the centuries of Roman occupation and in medieval times it had been part of the Jewish quarter, before the Jews had been driven out and massacred. After that, it had seen the burning of so-called witches, who were probably harmless herbalists. Some history!
The present car park and down-market bistro were possibly the safest the area had been for millennia … with merely the occasional ghost and plate-eating demon.
To her relief her BMW hadn't turned into a pumpkin. As she drove from the car park, she failed to notice Ashtar staring down from the roof of a nearby office block.
Back in her flat, Jan willed herself to work at the laptop. The wall clock raced around to 9.15 p.m. She finished the High Barn piece and sent it to Russell without checking a single word. Then she turned her attention to a much more burning issue–she smiled at the choice of adjective –the identity of Ashtar.
Eventually she tracked him down in several ancient demonologies. However, he wasn’t known as Ashtar, but as Ashtaroth. According to the majority of the demonologies, Ashtaroth was a demon in the form of a man with feathered wings. Although she hadn't noticed any wings, she had the overwhelming feeling that Ashtar was a mere projection and that Ashtaroth's true form was something else entirely.
After further investigation, she came across an image of Ashtaroth on an obscure internet site—a fiery demon with immense feathery wings and malevolently leering features. She was taken aback, shocked by what purported to be his true form. She read the following: He giveth true answers of things Past, Present and to Come.
Well, she thought, that much is true–to a point. She continued reading: He can discover all secrets. He appeareth in the Form of an hurtful Angel. She studied the demon's image again and found it impossible to believe that anything but malevolence could come from such a being. And who then was Ashtar but the demon himself in the form of an hurtful Angel?
After more assiduous searching on the Internet, she located some recent comments: Ashtaroth: One of a number of powerful ancient demons. Ranked near the very top of the demonic hierarchies of the ancient world.
She had the impression that these were characters or powers that had been around forever in various forms and guises. She suddenly realised that this was where the need to offer sacrifices stemmed from. In a creation inhabited by capricious gods and manipulative demons–assuming you could tell which was which– human beings had to spend most of their days placating one and paying off the other. A real balancing act.
Forget about the monotheisms, she thought. This ancient world had never gone away. She’d just encountered one of its senior representatives! And if these characters had been around forever–and if they’d constantly been visiting us in their strange lightforms–so much for ufology being a recent thing.
If Greg was here now he could doubtless provide her with references from the Old Testament or the Bhagavad Gita, which would confirm her new thinking.
She continued searching and came across another piece which described the demons' preferred physical locations: They inhabit, from preference, the abandoned places of man, unlike benign spirits that dwell in places of traditional sanctity. Demons will invariably cause injury; benign spirits, if approached respectfully, will not.
She realised that there were two different forces at work here—the good guys in the sacred springs and hilltops, and the villains in the abandoned quarries and post-industrial wastelands. If Ashtar was really Ashtaroth, not just a minor spirit dressed like a Roman senator, her investigation of the strange light in the field had attracted top-level otherworld attention. But what was Ashtar's agenda? Who was he manipulating–and why? And if his motivation was other than human, would anyone be able to grasp what he was really after?
She saw that the future would always be what it used to be; it would always be gods and demons, benign earth spirits and malevolent deceivers. And there were few humans around these days who could tell the difference.
9
In spite of her fatigue, Jan slept restlessly. The bedside clock crept around from 1.00 a.m. to 2.15. She was in the middle of an unusual dream; she dreamed that she woke up in her dream and saw a light under the door to the sitting room. She hadn't left the light on, so she got up to investigate. Feeling strangely empowered, she walked towards the bedroom door, opened it, and stepped into the sitting room.
Two detectives in sharp suits were ransacking desk drawers and filing cabinets.
"Stop that right now," she commanded, sounding like Alice. "Show me your search warrant!"
The first detective, short and squat, shook his head in sad commiseration. "Don't need one, lady. We're above the law."
The second detective, tall and lithe, seemed to have difficulty deciding on an appropriate emotion. He blew his nose and dried his eyes on a very large white handkerchief. He turned to her tearfully. "You go back to bed and let us get on with our dirty, underhand business."
"Why should I? What's the sense in that?" she asked accusingly.
The first detective shook his hairless head. "There's no sense left in this world, lady. Just take it easy. Go with the flow."
"What am I suspected of?" she asked more from outrage than anxiety.
The s
econd detective wiped his eyes with a tiny hand. "Whatever it is, it has to be serious. We only do serious."
"My guess is you've annoyed the wrong people," the first detective said, shaking his head so hard he made her dizzy.
"But I haven't done anything," she protested.
"That's no defence," the second detective said apologetically, taking a clean handkerchief from an inside pocket and wiping streaming eyes.
"What do you know about Gregory Houseman?" the first detective demanded, sticking out his jaw aggressively.
"He doesn't exist," she replied with conviction.
The second detective thumped his fists on the desk like a child at the start of a furious tantrum. "That's what they all say," he bellowed. "But we're not allowed to believe it!"
"You tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I think I know. Okay?" she offered.
The first detective shook his head. "We don't know anything. Why d'you think we're here? Anyway, even if we did, it's classified information."
"So is mine," she replied emphatically.
"I've found it," the second detective exclaimed. He took her notebook from a desk drawer and held it up triumphantly.
"That's private," she objected, reaching for it.
"That's exactly why we need it, lady." The first detective stuck out his jaw belligerently.
"It's a democracy–privacy's not relevant!" The second detective waved her notebook tauntingly. "I'll be keeping this." His tears had disappeared and his voice had developed an accusatory edge. He thrust her notebook into a pocket.
"What are you going to do with that?" she asked, suddenly fearful.
"No idea, lady," the first detective replied flatly. "But we'll make sure there's enough in there to frame you."
The first detective got unsteadily to his feet. His facial features appeared to have slipped a little and his neck was not as straight as it should have been. The result of all the head shaking, she thought.