The Evil Within

by William King

  She then recited:

  A thousand years or more ago

  A woman lived who had no soul

  The man she married pride did sore

  And so his son the child she bore

  But with time he did finally discover

  That she did truly have another lover

  He went insane and cut off her head

  And so he thought she was surly dead

  Then the demon Satan took control

  And sent her back to claim his soul

  They now become the demons host

  And walk about as living ghosts

  What of the child where can it be

  Do you now think the child is me

  Look for the child here is a clue

  It could be me it could be you

  Find that child and be set free

  Of everything you think is me

  “Elizabeth, there is something strange about that riddle. It would have us believe that the child is a boy, while by Bastelet’s own admission she states that it could be me, or it could be you. How could the child be her if in fact it was a boy? Elizabeth, I think I can truthfully say that Bastelet wants us to find out the answer to that riddle that way her long lost soul can be finally put to rest.”

  “I strongly suspect that you are right about that Mason, and I could go as far as saying that she had planned it all this way. Remember when she said that she had liked playing our little games?”

  “Yes Elizabeth, but we may never know for sure unless we can find the answers to the riddle.”

  “Mason, do you really believe that she is the child in the riddle?”

  “She has to be, but there is no telling how long she has been around.”

  “I think this time Mason you may be mistaken. It would be just too obvious for her to be the child, and I think that she is just trying to throw us off track.”

  “I do believe one thing Elizabeth, and that is I believe that the sex of the child is not a boy, and I do not think that the people in the riddle are any relation to you at all.”

  “We can think about that later Mason, but right now we must be getting back to camp before darkness falls.”

  We walked out of the cave only to be greeted by an angry sky, with the crackling of lightning, promising to give us a wet and miserable night.

  “We could gather up all of our belongings and take them into the cave? At least it would be dry.”

  “That is a very tempting offer Mason, but I think we would be a whole lot safer out in the open, and besides, Bastelet would not dare use that ghastly altar tonight, at least not while we are there.”

  Elizabeth walked over and sat down beside the fire in silence and in solitude. I watched her very closely, and soon realized that she looked ten years older ever since that damn Bastelet planted the seed of suspicion within her mind. I wondered if this was how she planned to destroy Elizabeth, and to make her think that she was damned. My heart truly went out to her, yet there was nothing in the world that I could do for her except try and convince her that she was a normal human being, and not something created out of evil.

  “Elizabeth, please do not do this to yourself, can’t you see that Bastelet only implied that you were the child to break your will, making you an easier target. Elizabeth, you couldn’t possibly be that evil demon child, because you possess such a tremendous amount of love and compassion for human life.”

  She gave me a great big smile and said, “Thank you for being so understanding, it makes me love you even more.” Her face saddened as she said with a trembling voice, “Mason, I hope you never have to find out that you are wrong.”

  I had done all that I could do to convince her, but I had failed miserably. She would never believe that she was not that evil demon child until we find out who the real demon child was. The web of deception had once again been woven so deeply into her imagination that she was powerless against Bastelet, no matter how hard she fought. She would not be able to set herself free of this doubt.

  I sat there staring up into a starless sky while the dark storm clouds opened up and released enormous droplets of moisture over the jungle canopy, drenching the both of us in less than a minute’s time. The rain seemed to have a tranquil effect on Elizabeth, who had now lost her saddened and gloomy expression. I hoped that the rain would also wash away all the depressing thoughts that Bastelet had poison her mind with.

  I began to feel the effects of the huge droplets of rain, as the exposure to them seemed to dull my senses, and drained my body of all its emotion. The raindrops were cold, sending chills throughout my body. The only thing that seemed important to me now was a good night’s sleep. However, getting a good night’s sleep being out in the elements was never going to happen. Therefore, I curled up in my sleeping bag, laid there with my head exposed and watched Elizabeth. She must have felt the need for rest too, because just as I felt my eye lids start to close I saw her lie down.

  Within what seemed to be merely minutes after closing my eyes I was dreaming. I knew it was just a dream, yet it felt so surreal. I saw a hideous looking woman bending over a crib crooning to a baby. The woman looked as if she had been dead for hundreds of years, and spoke these words to the child, ‘You are a very special child, and you will grow up to be a very important person.’ Her eyes seemed to be black as coal. I called out, trying to get her attention, but my words fell upon deaf ears as she continued talking to the baby. The baby’s eyes held steadfast to her face, as if it understood what she had been saying.

  The next horrifying scene in my dream brought a dreadful acknowledgment. I had been a young child, at least seven years old, maybe younger. I do not know. I was sitting at the woman’s feet just watching her as she rocked slowly back and forth in an old wooden chair. Strangely, the woman became quiet and tears started to fill her blackened eyes as I asked her something about my parents. She softly replied, ‘I am the only parent that you will ever know child. I alone know the secret of your birth, and it causes me more pain than you will ever know. Please promise me that you will never again ask me that question. It’s enough for now to know that I love you with all my heart, and will always cherish and protect you until life leaves my body. ‘I know that someday you will learn the truth and I can only hope that I have given you enough love that you can look upon my remains with forgiveness. Now child I want you to promise me that you will never ask me that again.’

  I promised and the dream came to an abrupt end. I awakened to another scene within my dream drenched in sweat and cried out, “Oh God, it is me, I am the Devil’s Child!”

  I could hear Bastelet laughing in the background, and my own tormented screams could be heard as they were caught up by the wind, which then carried my screams straight into the gates of Hell, then silenced. Then the loving Mrs. Gwendolyn stood before me. The expression on her face was grim, as I questioned her accusingly.

  “You knew all along that it was me, didn’t you? I trusted you with my life and I followed you blindly into this traitorous nightmare, and you knew all along that I was the Devil’s Child.”

  Tears started to roll down her face as I asked, “Why Gwendolyn, why, and for what reason?”

  “Hush young man, you were sent here for a purpose, a very important one! Mason, there is one thing that I want to ask you. Do you truly love my daughter?’

  “Yes, I would die for her.”

  She faltered and then regained her composure and asked, “Mason Williams, do you love my daughter enough to try and change something that has occurred in the family for millennia’s? Something that has been left unchanged and hanging in the balance of good and evil, and one day could kill her, and cause her to walk the darkened depths of Hell for all eternity?”

  “Gwendolyn, you know that I love your daughter with all my heart, but now that I know the truth I must find enough courage to tell her, or else be held accountable for her death.”

  “Mason, I want to tell you a story first, and then if you still feel that you mus
t go, then you will be free to make your own decision. But know this Mason, in the event that you still wish to go, your memory will be erased, and all of the episodes that have happened in your life will be gone forever.”

  I listened, still not completely understanding, but knowing deep down in my heart that I would stay with Elizabeth until the very end, even though the end might find the both of us in the darkened depths of Hell where reality no longer exists.

  “Mason, a long time ago a young woman lived whose mind was trapped in bondage that would never see the light of day. This young woman had been left all alone in the world at the age of thirteen with no one to turn too when her parents passed away. With no one to turn to a young man had entered her life and they married shortly after. This young man had been possessed by a thousand demons, and not knowing that the young woman had already conceived. Six months later, when the young woman gave birth to a little baby boy, her husband beheaded her out of rage, knowing that he had not fathered this newborn child.

  “God, seeing the grave end that the child would come to had taken her life to later live again, putting an end to the battle of Good, and Evil. This man, a thousand years ago was your father, and was also related to Elizabeth through past generations. The woman was your mother, and having no living blood relative left except for you, will walk the realm of the darkened depths of Hell, and will remain just out of reach until you, along with Elizabeth find her wondering soul, which has been misguided from her birth.

  “Only then will she find the peace that she seeks. Because she had no ability to distinguish the difference between right or wrong, her husband took her straight to Hell, and will remain the host of Satan, indefinitely unless you stop the battles that have been fought for your soul since your birth.”

  “Gwendolyn, please help me understand how in God’s name is it possible that I am alive and well today when in fact I was born and died a thousand years ago?”

  “Mason, the woman you saw in your dreams reborn you knowing that it would be your destiny to end this bloody nightmare somewhere in the future of your life. That is why she sent you into the depths of Hell many years ago and had your guardian angel Ambriel guide you back out. She knew everything from the beginning, and that is why she had sent you to live with Alexander and Charlotte Kingsley. She knew that they would keep you safe from Bastelet until it was time for you to fulfil your destiny. They had raised you as their own, and to love God, knowing that one day the Satan would one day come claim you for his own. She was a lonely and barren woman, and knew that this would be her only chance at motherhood. She took the chance despite the risk that she knew was involved.’

  “Gwendolyn, how can I stop this endless nightmare?”

  “Mason, you must start by going to the temple, and profess your love for God.”

  My head ached with so many questions as I asked, “Gwendolyn, did you plan on me falling in love with your daughter, or was it a total surprise to the both of us?”

  “Let me say this Mason. It was a welcome surprise. Elizabeth falling in love with you made a mends for the punishment that her ancestors had put your mother through, but do not worry, many generations have passed, and have washed away all kinship to the both of you.

  What will your answer be Mason? Oh, one other thing Mason, although you were born out of the remains of that child, you are now free from all its influence. You became a separate entity from the time you were reborn by the woman who you saw in your terrifying dreams. Mason, Bastelet was the mother of that child long ago. Her life was also destined to be reborn until she would produce a child that lived between Good and Evil, and Bastelet still searches, but not for that child, but for its resting place. She has learned that in order for her to be set free from walking the tormented realms between heaven and hell that she must go back to the beginning to find the answers that she too seeks.

  “So I will ask you again Mason, what will your answer be?”

  As I looked at Elizabeth’s mother, hardened with years of self-preservation, I said, “Gwendolyn, Alexander and Charlotte Kingsley had raised me up to be a fighter, and I will sure as hell fight to the very end, no matter what the outcome for me will be, destiny or no destiny.”

  I was awakened by the sound of Elizabeth. I watched her silently as she added more wood to the fire, letting the strength of our love engulf me, for I would need every ounce of that strength to tell her the truth about me, and what I am, which surely must be revealed to her. I arose from the warmth of my sleeping bag and nervously walked over to her, sat down beside the fire and started telling her everything, just as her mother had told it to me. I did not get a reaction from her at first. The expression on her face at the time held neither surprise nor hatred. I sat there waiting impatiently for her to say anything, anything at all, but the silence just lingered.

  She finally turned to me, placing her hands upon my face and said, “Mason, I love the man that you are now, not the man you were centuries before, and as for my ancestors, they can stay buried within the darkened depths of Hell, along with yours!”

  Her words pierced through my heart like an arrow, but instead of wounding it, mended it. I looked into her eyes as I tried to explain to her and said, “Elizabeth that is exactly the point that I am trying to get across to you, their villainous souls refuse to stay buried within hell.”

  “So Mason, they do not want my soul, yet they refuse to leave me in peace? So you are saying that I am their puppet, the only one that can help them get what they want, which is you. I am absolutely sure of one thing, and that is my mother was, and still is a very wise lady, and if she told you that everything will turn out just fine in the end, you better believe it will.”

  I was getting edgy and thought a walk would help calm my nerves. Therefore, I walked away from the campsite and the warmth of the fire with no destination at hand, leaving Elizabeth wondering where I was going, as I slowly walked out of sight. I walked into the jungle in no particular direction for what seemed to be only a couple of minutes when I stumbled upon the ancient temple. I wondered if this was where it had, all began millennia’s ago, and for some reason I knelt down before the altar, placed my hands upon the sacred stone, and prayed. Warm tears developed and started to run down my face as I asked God to put an end to the persecution that these people had lived with all these years, for the last time. I prayed as if I had never prayed a day in my life. I knew that I alone held the power of forgiveness. As strange as it may seem, calmness entered my body and gave me a feeling of peace.

  I walked back to camp, not with despair, but with the strength to do whatever needed to be done, but unable to do before. I felt as if now I had the strength to destroy my mightiest enemy. It did not take too long for me to get back to camp, but when I returned Elizabeth must have sensed my enlightened sense of being as she looked up at me as I sat down next to her and gave me a great big smile that was brighter than the light illuminating off of the campfire. I loved Elizabeth with all my heart, and if I lost this supernatural battle of the souls with Bastelet, then she too would be lost.

  However, Elizabeth and I had something powerful that Bastelet could never take away from us, we had our love for each other, so we were already victorious. Love is the most powerful of all feelings for any couple to have, and we had pledged that love for one another, body, and soul. Bastelet could not take my soul, for I had given it up a long time ago to God, and what was left of me belonged to Elizabeth.

  I slipped myself snugly back into my sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep, as if I didnot have a care in the world. That is for what little of night remained until daybreak. My body seemed to float up into the sky, and I floated further and further until I came to rest on an awe-inspiring cloud. Where I heard a voice, strange to my ears, unlike anything that I have ever heard. It was a voice of a man, but not of an ordinary man, it was the voice of God Almighty himself. The voice shattered the silence that had filled my dream and said, “Mason, even as you sleep you have won the first of many
battles, and although you have been chosen to carry out these plans that I have written down onto the tablets of destiny, you can rest assured that you are not the child that Bastelet seeks.

  “I will only say this, it was necessary for the child to die and her remains be kept hidden until such a time when she can be resurrected. Had the child’s remains been found before this time, she too would have been condemned to walk the darkest depths of Hell where no light ever shines. I have restricted her from knowing my plans, for she was the Good that would conquer the Evil.”

  After that, it was as if a dead calm had filled my dream. There was nothing but silence that is until I began to dream the reoccurring dream about the tribal people on the island. They were chanting and taunting me to join them, and were chanting the same words over and over, Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, Mata-Ki-Te-Rani. I had misunderstood their chanting before, but now I knew it was not Satan that they were summoning, it was me that they were calling. Oh god, I was their intended victim. I was the Devil’s Child who was to replace the missing girl. My choices were limited, as whatever supernatural forces were at work here, they sure did not intend on losing who they came for. I would have to find the child that they longed for, or I would be the one taking her place, as Bastelet’s counterpart.

  I started shouting at the top of my lungs “I will never come to you, my soul belongs to God,” but my words fell on deaf ears. Then, Elizabeth’s mother appeared, placed her hand over my heart, smiled, and felt a warming sensation where she placed her hand. When I looked down there was a small cross, etched into my skin, and when I looked up again she was gone. All that I could do is try to comprehend all the things that were happening, as I knew that somehow all these events were going to keep unraveling until the puzzle was complete.

  My dream changed once again, and now I was seeing the black-eyed woman in the old wood rocking chair, rocking back and forth. The woman looked over at me, very strangely, and I could almost feel the pain that had showed on her face as she said, “Mason, I thought that my love for you would be enough to protect you, and would somehow change and defy your fate, but I was terribly wrong. I should have loved you enough to leave you in God’s hands. I know now that my love for you was a selfish love.”