He set the phone on the bedspread, sat down next to it and grabbed the remote control to turn on the hotel television. Maybe all he needed was a few moments of mind-numbing television combined with his mind-numbing drink, to help him relax and perhaps salvage enough of this evening so he might be able to get a good night’s sleep after all.
The television came on displaying the cable guide, which Wilson ignored, pressing the channel change button to surf for anything of interest. After a few clicks, he saw a news bulletin appear on the screen. It flashed the words “LIVE LATE BREAKING NATIONAL NEWS” across the bottom of the screen while above the words he saw a man in an orange jump suit being led handcuffed and shackled through a crowd of reporters apparently on the way to a police car in the nearby parking lot.
The camera panned to the front facade of a courthouse with many tall thin windows, stone face and rounded arch glass entryway. Wilson thought he recognized the courthouse. Another even more distant view flashed on the television with a shot of the four-sided clock tower looming high above the street below. Wilson was sure that he had seen that courthouse before. Then the camera returned to the view of the reporters and police at the top of the courthouse stairs.
A broadcast news reporter’s voice over came on saying; “This is Bill Pierson coming to you live from the Schuylkill County Courthouse in Yuengsville, PA.” Wilson suddenly understood why he recognized the building; it was the courthouse in his hometown. The reporter continued, “Where at this very moment, following a special late night court session, Randal Lee Forester is being led away by police, after being sentenced to life in prison based on his conviction for the August 19th, 2007 rape and murder of two-year-old Jennifer Lynn Stanton, the daughter of his then live-in girlfriend, Marie Louise Stanton. It is believed that the sentencing was scheduled for this late hour, in an attempt to reduce the media coverage of the event, but as you can see by the number of news outlets present, this attempt was not very effective. Forester’s attorneys stated that the appeal process has already begun and feel confident that the conviction and sentence will be overturned within the next year.”
Wilson’s face reddened with rage as he screamed at the set, “That son of a bitch should fry for what he did.” He watched the guards guide the man through the crowds across to the courthouse parking lot.
He recalled how the story had originally broken locally in Schuylkill County but, due to the horrendous nature of the crime, it had gotten worldwide coverage. Wilson was disgusted by the amount of media coverage involved. In his opinion, the vultures of the news media loved this kind of despicable story and although he understood it was their job and responsibility to report such events, and he still hated them for it.
Wilson remembered the events leading up to the baby’s murder. How the news stories reported that Forester had been sexually, and physically abusing the baby since birth, and how her mother had done nothing to stop him. The mother had claimed to police that she was too afraid of Forester to try to stop him, but later it was discovered that she was a heavy drug user and was for the most part oblivious to what Forester was doing.
To date, no charges had been filed against the girl friend but reporters suspected that charges of child negligence would be filed soon. “That bastard should suffer long and hard for what he did to that poor little girl.” Wilson shouted drunkenly at the television screen, his anger and rage increasing.
Wilson heard a buzzing sound next to him and noticed the light on the cell phone’s screen glowing with bright red illumination. Wilson looked at the screen where the message ‘NOW’ appeared. He looked back at the television; his fury now exploding into a drunken rage, and without forethought picked up the phone, pointed it directly at the television and randomly pressed a skull key, his anger once again seeming to flow into the phone.
On television, the live feed picture began to shake and blur as the ground around the precession of police officers and reporters began to quake. The news reporter announced in an alarming voice, “There seems to be some sort of disturbance occurring. The ground is shaking like crazy. I suspect we are experiencing an earthquake.” The camera continued filming the procession with its now jerky motion.
About ten feet in front of the procession, which had reached the courthouse parking lot, the ground began to crack open as an enormous fracture formed in the asphalt. The officers guarding Forester dove to the right and left to avoid being pulled down into the widening crevasse while everyone around and behind him did likewise.
The rapist/murderer Forester stood motionless as if he were incapable of making any attempt to save himself as the ever-lengthening fissure made its way toward him, now reaching over thirty feet long. Smoke and flames began to shoot high upward out of the opening. The sides of the massive slit that met the black top glowed bright red as the asphalt bubbled and dripped molten black tar down into the hole.
When the opening reached the place where Forester stood, the man began to sink downward, stiff as a board, into the opening. Reptilian tentacles with claw like hands reached upward from the opening covering Forester’s lower legs setting his orange jump suit afire. The man screamed in pain as the flesh beneath the suit liquefied and slid from his legs. The flames from the jumpsuit spread upward engulfing his upper body and setting his hair ablaze. Below, from deep in the crevasse, hundreds of spider like creatures skittered from the opening climbing up the burning man’s body, moving right though the flames completely unaffected by their searing heat.
The camera zoomed in close to the screaming man’s face as several of the spider creatures slid inside his wide-open mouth. Wilson saw one of Forester’s eyeballs pop from its socket and dangle down on his cheek as the spider thing crawled out of the bleeding orifice. The spider creature looked directly at the camera. Wilson felt it was looking directly at him and he was horrified beyond all comprehension to see that the thing had a face; a tiny hideous human-like face, and the face resembled that of himself, Charles Wilson.
It reminded him of the scene at the end of the original 1958 Sci-Fi movie, “The Fly” where actor, David Hedison’s head was shown on the body of the fly trapped in a spider’s web as the spider approached to devour him. The helpless human/fly screamed, “Help me. Help me,” over and over. Charles had seen that movie on television as a young boy and that particular scene had haunted his nightmares for months. Now this human/Charles headed creature was not crying for help; it was instead devouring the burning flesh and perhaps very soul of the dying Randal Lee Forester.
On the verge of passing out from the horrific spectacle unfolding before him, Wilson somehow managed to maintain consciousness perhaps with the morbid curiosity of someone watching a train wreck; sickened, but unable to look away. He saw a hairy leg protruding from the dying man’s nostril grabbing his upper lip and ripping a bloody strip of skin free, pulling it up into the nostril where it shoved it deep into its hungry maw. Forester’s hair was ablaze as the spider things crawled into his ears and burrowed deep inside his skull cavity.
The body continued slowly sinking into the abyss as Forester screamed and cried for mercy. As soon as it had slid completely down into the opening, there was another tremendous earthquake and the crack began to fuse back together, sealing Forester inside for eternity. When the ground stopped shaking there was not a single sign remaining to indicate that the opening had ever existed. There was not a crack, not a split or not even a bulge in the asphalt. It was as smooth as if it had just been poured by a crew of professionals.
Wilson sat in shock, revolted by what he had just witnessed, by what he believed he had just made happen. But, had he actually done that? He was a thousand miles from Pennsylvania yet somehow his hatred of that despicable piece of human refuse, Forester, was so great that the phone had done its work, done his work, even at such a great distance. And not only had he witnessed the event, but half of America if not the world, witnessed it as well.
Before he could even begin to understand what had just happened, t
he TV station, which had gone on an emergency commercial break, returned with replay footage of the event.
Once again, unable to look away, Wilson watched the repeat of the incident on the news program, certain that this event would likely replay on every major worldwide market within the hour and for the next week as well, until something more ghastly and therefore more interesting took its place, somewhere else in the world. However, what Wilson saw on the replay was considerably different from what he had actually witnessed when watching the event live.
On the replay footage, the earthquake occurred as originally seen and the crack in the earth opened up as well, but that is where the similarity ended. In the replay, Wilson did not see any flames or melting asphalt. He saw no reptilian arms with clawed human-like hands, no flames or no skittering Charles-faced spider creatures. What he saw was simply Forester sliding down into the crack screaming for help as he sunk below the surface, and the quake closed the opening sealing him inside. Although the site of the man’s death on film was still extremely graphic, perhaps too graphic for prime time television, and the man’s cries were haunting, the horror depicted was not a fraction of what Wilson had witnessed.
Wilson was dumbfounded. He knew what he had seen, he was certain of what he had witnessed, yet when he watched the replay video none of the creatures were there. How could this be? Wilson’s mind again began to swim but this time much worse than before, his vision became blurred, the room began to spin and he passed out, falling backward onto the hotel bed cover.
In the days to follow, the county workers would be given the task of jack hammering through a large portion of the asphalt on the courthouse parking lot in a feeble attempt to try to recover Forester’s body but it would never be found. There would never be a good scientific explanation for what had happened, and how could there be? Forester was in a very special place in Hell where he would be suffering for millions of years after all of the people who morbidly watched his disappearance had died and turned to dust.
Newspapers over the next few days would flash headlines such as “Devine Justice”, “Heavenly Retribution” and “Justice Served By God” as the television broadcasts played and replayed the footage. Church attendance would increase for several months to come. The town of Yuengsville would have to add auxiliary police to watch the courthouse parking lot round the clock for several months, as thousands of people from around the world made pilgrimages to see the site where the alleged divine retribution had taken place. Scientists would offer their logical theories as to what had happened, but it would not stop the superstitions.
Eventually the incident would reach folk legend status and the video clips would end up on various mystery specials and “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” types of television shows. Most rational thinking people would consider it one of those strange natural occurrences or coincidences and eventually would simply forget about it. And no matter how many times the video was seen and no matter how closely it was scrutinized, no one anywhere would ever see what Charles Wilson had seen that night, for only he could see the truth, because he was the keeper of the phone.
Chapter 11
After collapsing into an unconscious heap on the hotel bed, Charles Wilson did not have a pleasant night’s sleep as he had hoped, but instead found his slumber tormented with scenes of horror spanning countless centuries. These images accosted him throughout the night in a rapid-fire series of terrible nightmares from which he was unable to awaken as he was forced to watch violent events, one more gruesome than the next, play out upon his dreamscape.
Flash…Wilson found that he could not speak. In his mind, he heard the words that he wished to utter aloud but when he tried to articulate them all he was able to generate were a few guttural sounding grunts. It was as if he did not have vocal chords sufficient to utter speech. He did not understand why he was no longer capable of doing something as simple as saying a few words. He noticed in addition, that he was sitting in a place of almost complete darkness with only traces of glowing light coming from the ground directly in front of him.
As things slowly began to come into focus, Wilson looked around the murky environment and saw that he was outdoors and it was an exceptionally dark night. The minimal glowing light available came from what appeared to be hot embers remaining in was once must have been a campfire enclosed in a circle of rocks. He could smell the acrid aroma of burning wood and saw the charcoals glowing brightly in the fire pit. He seemed to be alone at the campfire, not seeing any other shadows encircling the area.
He looked up toward the heavens and saw a quarter-moon high in the night sky along with thousands of brightly shining stars sparkling like precious jewels against a coal black background. He had never seen a more spectacular sight in his life; realizing that the reason the view was so incredible was that there was literally no illumination from any surrounding towns. Such light pollution generally prevented urban dwellers from seeing such a beautiful sight. The stars were so amazingly stunning that Wilson felt he easily could have spent the rest of his life sitting and staring at them, perhaps counting them one by one or creating his own constellation patterns by playing connect the stars. The entire awe-inspiring experience left Wilson breathless.
Then he felt a icy breeze blow across his body making him feel naked and defenseless against the elements. As his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, Wilson noticed some loose logs lying within reach. He picked up a large piece of dried branch, which had a number of dried leaves attached and placed it atop the red-hot coals. He also found some dried grass on a pile next to him, which once added to the embers, quickly burst into flames igniting the dried log bringing the fire roaring back to life. He added a few additional logs from the pile and within a few moments, the roaring fire provided the much-needed warmth. Wilson was somewhat surprised by his own strength and how he had easily tossed the logs onto the fire without ever getting up from his sitting position.
The now blazing fire provided some light for Wilson to get a better feel for his surroundings. He could now see his arms the firelight and was stunned to notice that they did not seem to be his arms at all, but were instead, much larger, more muscular and covered with long thick black almost animal-like hair. He found this revelation to be very disconcerting. These huge arms also seemed to be grimy with some sort of dried mud or caked-on dirt, as if he had gone a long time without bathing.
His also noticed that his field of vision was somewhat impaired by what appeared to be extremely long strands of filthy, greasy black hair dangling in disarray from his forehead. He raised what he discovered to be one of his massive hands and roughly finger-combed the hair back out of his eyes slicking the slimy mass backward, hearing it slap against the top of his huge head. He also seemed to have itching sensation not only on his scalp, but all over his body. He noticed a foul animal-like feral woodsy odor and was embarrassed to realize that the scent was actually coming from him.
He became aware that he was sitting squat on a large hard rock in front of the now roaring fire, covered in what appeared to be the skin of some type of wild animal. Thinking about what he had observed so far, he appeared to be not much more than an animal, himself, draped in hides, itching and smelling of filth. He realized that he was not the same Charles Wilson he once was, but actually seemed to be occupying the body of some sort of primitive being, perhaps what he thought of as a cave man. He wondered how and why he was inside the body of a primitive creature such as this.
Wilson looked down between his massive hair-covered legs and saw huge almost furry bare feet with gnarled, thick, yellowed and blackened toenails. Sitting on the ground between the large feet, he noticed what appeared at first glance to be a human skull. Upon closer examination, Wilson realized that it was too small to be an actual skull but was in fact, a primitive carving of a skull apparently made from a large chunk of stone or quartz crystal.
He reached down and picked up the skull, holding it in the palm of his huge hand. In the place where the empty
eye sockets should have been, two ruby-red jewels were pressed into the stone. He turned the skull over in his hand as was surprised to see that the jewels did not fall from the sockets. Wilson looked and them closer, marveling at the time and craftsmanship that must have gone into hand grinding the sockets and mating jewels to get such a tight and precise fit. He never would have imagined that such a precise sculpture could have been created in what was apparently a primitive environment. He instinctively knew that he, or the creature who’s body he now occupied, did not create this magnificent work of art, but somehow he was nonetheless in possession and apparently in control of it. He placed the skull back on the ground between his feet.
Wilson heard what sounded like the grunting of a group of animals, perhaps wild pigs, coming out the darkness beyond the reach of the firelight. Suddenly, three huge hairy humanoid creatures, rippling with muscles; filthy with mud and covered with grime lurched quickly toward his fire, their sweat-covered frames glistening in the firelight. Their darting, cautious movements reminded Wilson of the actions that he had seen gorillas make during his visit last year to the Philadelphia Zoo. Yet these beasts were not quite gorillas or apes but some prehistoric form of early man. They seemed to dart toward his fire howling, screaming and waving their arms, and then just as quickly, they would retreat backward into the darkness, only to dart back out once again. It appeared as if they were both amazed and yet somehow terrified by the sight of the blazing fire.
They continued this strange forward and backward process for several minutes, daring to get a little bit closer to the fire with each subsequent approach as Wilson sat quietly, continuing to study their actions with utter fascination. He had a sense that these three beings were perhaps a different version of the type of being that he appeared to be, perhaps more primitive and obviously less intelligent category, but they were beyond a doubt much larger and quite possibly much stronger.
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