by Aiden James
“Just be cool about it—don’t act nervous, man. This will all blow over as long as we handle things the right way… to not overreact to what has happened.”
“Humph! That seems so easy for you to say, Walt,” said Peter, for the moment compliant with Walter’s wish for him to remain discreet. He paused to poke his head out into the hallway, quietly surveying both directions.
“I’m sure you can handle this just fine,” advised Walter, once Peter faced him again. “Don’t overreact to whatever the cops throw your way, and you’ll do great.”
The impish grin returned, though shrouded by uncertainty.
“We’ll see.” Peter shook Walter’s hand despite his misgivings, and prepared to head back downstairs. “Will you at least secure the necklace, so that if this all turns to shit we’ll at least have that to fall back on?”
“Sure,” Walter promised. “In fact, I’ll secure it in my safe along with the jewels I showed you earlier, after I remove them from the scepter.”
Peter eyed him suspiciously, but then softened, realizing he had no choice but to trust his friend to take care of the necklace and jewels. A certainty in his mind, someone would come snooping around here, sooner or later.
“All right, then. I’ll call you once I find out more about what has happened at Langston Hall.”
“Sounds good, Pete. Take care.”
***
Walter stepped out into the hallway and watched as Peter disappeared down the stairs. As soon as he heard his boot heels click against the foyer’s marble floor below, he returned to his office, closing his office door behind him.
He leaned his back against the door, facing the enormous stained glass window behind his desk. When he heard the heavy front door downstairs open and then close, he moved over to the small window that Peter had looked through earlier. Flurried snowflakes found it easier to stick to the glass, as the outside temperature continued to drop into the low teens.
Walter saw Peter’s headlights turn on through the iced windowpanes, and felt the urge to wave goodbye. He unlatched the lever and rolled open the window. A gust of chilled snow blew into the room followed by heavy creaks on the rooftop above. He waved to Walter, though unsure if his good friend could see him or not. He waited until Peter began to drive away and then rolled the window shut, just as a more powerful gust than the first entered the room, sending flurries that reached his desk.
Dr. Pollack turned away from the window, a hopeful smile on his face as he took a step toward his chair. But then he abruptly stopped before taking another. The display case’s top lay open, and the jeweled golden scepter was missing. He gasped in surprise.
A deep sardonic chuckle erupted from in front of his desk, one that was human and yet at the same time unnatural. Walter’s heart began to pound fiercely inside his chest. Before his mind could convince him of a logical reason for what he just heard, an immense shadow rose up from the floor, easily obscuring the only exit from the room. In fear, he stepped back into the corner of the room, toward the French paned window he had just closed. The window’s curtain still rustled from when he had shut it only a moment ago.
“Who are you?” he asked, his normal confident voice unsure.
His crisp, lucent mind became muddied as he sought to form an immediate plan for escape. He could only manage a general estimate as to how far the drop would be to the pavement below the second story window. Was it eighteen feet or twenty-two feet? He couldn’t remember, but a broken leg or arm would be a certainty, since the gabled roof below the window was slick from sleeted snow. All he knew for certain was danger. Danger from the voice, and even more so from the tall, foreboding figure that now stepped out from the shadow.
Unsure if what stood before him was human, he did discern the figure as definitely male, naked with a slender but solid, sinewy build. Covered from head to toe with faint scars that resembled stretch-mark grooves, its long, gray-streaked, black hair made it appear similar to a forty-ish man. This individual might’ve been dashingly handsome in youth, based on the chiseled facial features. But the grooves and unnatural, light green, cat-like eyes, with bright yellow halos around the rims, gave it a creepy appearance. The monstrous ‘humanoid’ eyed him knowingly, as if fully aware of the myriad thoughts and observations bombarding Walter’s mind.
“What the hell do you want from me??” the professor demanded, more nervous now as it moved around the desk and walked slowly toward him.
Another chuckle erupted from the throat of whatever this thing was, and the slight grin upon its face steadily widened into a full smile. Its mouth suddenly looked impossibly large to the professor, but necessary to house the double row of long sharp teeth within. Such observations the natural habit of Walter’s analytical mind, he cowered in the corner, all ideas of escape through the window foregone. There simply wasn’t time or opportunity to flee anywhere.
It alarmed him to see the scepter wielded so menacingly. For a moment, the strange and grotesque being that held it reminded him of some king or ancient chieftain; the deep, ink-like shadow following close behind the figure acting like an imperial cloak as it closed in on him.
“Look, I’ll give you whatever you want… I can pay you whatever amount you desire!!”
Feeling helpless, he heard how pitiful his entreaty sounded. No doubt he appeared the same way. With nowhere to go, he slid down in the corner, his hands held out pleadingly as the figure raised the scepter with one of its long boney hands. The other hand was held out as if offering him assistance in standing back up. But then the hand’s curled fingernails unfurled, ready to strike him with five deadly razors.
“No, God, please don’t—”
That’s all Dr. Walter Pollack could get out of his mouth before his impassioned plea for mercy turned into a blood-curdling scream.
***
Elaine Pollack watched from a hidden vantage point, next to a Doric column that stood between the parlor and living room, as the bastard Peter Kirkland gathered his coat, scarf, and hat in preparation to leave. He lingered long enough to scan the area as far as his prescription glasses would allow, seemingly frustrated by the fifteen-foot fir in his way. When he couldn’t detect her presence, he opened the heavy wooden door and let himself out of her home. It wasn’t until after he closed the door behind him and she heard his footfalls along the chilled concrete outside that she began to feel at peace again. If only the last time she would ever see the man.
She smiled to herself at how that last thought lifted her mood, and knew it would have elicited a warm chuckle if she felt better. Even now, her stomach churned.
About to walk to the kitchen to fix something light to snack on, she heard a shriek coming from upstairs. Muffled, it likely came from her husband’s office. The much louder sound of breaking glass soon followed.
“Walter!”
She hurried out of the living room, nearly tripping on the foyer’s marble tiles. After straightening her slippers, she climbed the staircase in the adjoining turret to the second floor as quickly as her weakened condition would allow. When she reached her husband’s office, she hesitated for a moment, surprised by the flurried snowflakes floating through the tiny space between the base of the door and the office’s hardwood floor beneath it.
Papa’s commissioned stained glass window broke—oh, my God!
In panic, she turned the doorknob and threw open the door, expecting to see a sizeable hole in her favorite of five prized windows in the house.
Sixty thousand bucks down the fucking drain!
Elaine stormed into Walter’s office, ready to launch a tirade, picturing him as he finished off the decanter half-filled with sherry and then moving on to the large bottle of Blue Label Jack Daniels he received from a local state senator for Christmas. Knocked-off-his-ass-drunk, he apparently lost his balance and probably pushed that goddamned display case of his into the window—after she’d repeatedly warned him to move it somewhere else.
Set to start her usual lecture, much m
ore harshly this time—with an ‘I told you so!’ preface to launch it right—she couldn’t muster a word. All she could do was drop to her knees while her mouth repeatedly opened and closed, silent, like the trophy German brown trout her father caught when she was ten and laid out on the back deck of their stately summer home in New Hampshire, suffocating while it fought desperate for oxygen relief that would never come.
Just as she feared, her prized stained glass window had been broken, though much worse than she envisioned. Only a few shards of glass sticking out from the window frame remained. But that was not the worst, and certainly not what threw her into a state of shock that later proved to be the cornerstone for her nervous breakdown, less than a month after this tragic night.
Dr. Walter Pollack stared back at his grieving wife upside down from his enormous mahogany desk’s spacious top. Torn and gutted, his twisted remains resembled a bloody snake contorted in a grotesque ‘S’ shape, sprawled and contorted meanly upon the journals and other reports he worked on earlier, with his head barely attached to a narrow strip of the professor’s spinal cord.
In an instant, all of the shared memories of love and happiness overrode the recent string of affairs and other transgressions that broke her heart. When the wave of these memories and attendant emotions grew too strong to contain within her heaving bosom, Elaine Pollack finally found her voice. Sadly, no one could hear her grieve, and no one was there to comfort her. Not even undesirable company like Peter Kirkland, who sped along the estate’s long, icy driveway toward the main roads that would take him back to society.
***
“What in the hell is that?”
Dr. Kirkland adjusted the rearview mirror in his Jeep, glancing out the side mirror to get a better look at the stained glass window in Walter’s upstairs office. He saw his long time friend wave to him through the smaller French paned window and had responded in kind, though certain Walter missed his response while rolling the window shut. He assumed all was well and set his thoughts on what to tell the police gathered at Langston Hall. The creepy feeling of being watched by some unseen voyeur had disappeared, long gone. But, when he glanced back at the mansion through the rearview mirror once the back defroster had cleared the remaining ice from his rear window, somehow the large colorful upstairs window had changed.
At first, it seemed like an optical illusion, with hundreds of glass fragments suddenly sucked into the office. His first thought was maybe the object that struck the house had caused a fire after all—perhaps busting the gas line Walter told him about—since such a phenomenon of glass being sucked inward could happen if the fire’s oxygen pull and pressure were just right. That thought, however, changed completely when a thick, ink-like shadow poured out through the enormous hole where the window had been. He thought he heard a scream, too, but that could’ve been the wind.
Goddamn it, Walter!
He almost turned around, since he had a new reason to worry what would become of the prized necklace tied to old Roanoke. The images of being honored in the more important forensic and other scientific journals already less assured, they would become nonexistent if some unforeseen misfortune threatened the excellent condition of the necklace. He even started to slow down. What changed his mind and convinced him to speed up instead was the fact the shadow grew much larger, deepening into a thick, black cloud. It veered swiftly in his direction, gaining on the jeep that now raced in haste down the driveway.
At first, all he could do was stare incredulous at the reflection of the eerie object through the Jeep’s mirrors. But then rising panic reclaimed his attention and he pushed the pedal to the floor, desperate in his determination to make it to the main road still a half-mile away. The huge specter quickly closed the gap, and as it did, the unmistakable sound of hornets filled the air behind the Jeep.
“No way!” he whispered in disbelief, turning down the heater’s blower to listen to the growing noise while unable to remove his eyes from either mirror for long. “No fucking way!”
Logic wasn’t helping, since no matter how he tried to assure himself that this cloudlike thing was just a natural phenomenon that only looked and sounded frightening, his heart remained gripped by the same intense fear. The noise dreadful…what the hell could sound like an enormous nest of pissed-off hornets in the dead of winter?
Less than a quarter of a mile left to navigate until he reached the main road. Meanwhile, he kept a vigilant eye on both the side and rearview mirrors. Without warning, the thing dramatically increased its speed, and the size of the cloud got much, much bigger. The cacophony of hornets became so loud that Peter could hardly hear himself think. In terror, he floored the gas pedal again, trying to shove his boot into the floor of the Jeep, nearly spinning off the slick driveway in the process.
Less than a hundred feet from the road, the reflective ‘Ruben Road’ street sign became visible. But the ear-splitting clamor and enormous wave of blackness overtook him. Unable to see anything, Peter slammed on the brakes, the vehicle sliding to a stop with one tire leaning over into a ditch. Unable to drive the Jeep further, without first getting out and pushing it back onto the paved driveway, he prepared for the worst. For the first time in many years, he prayed. He prayed earnestly to get out of this unharmed by whatever pursued him…to make it back to his dearest Darlene, and climb into their soft warm bed later tonight and snuggle together until either she or he fell asleep.
With his eyes closed, the terrifying noise ceased, and when he cautiously opened them, the darkness that had surrounded him had left. Under the moonlight’s glow, he could clearly see the glistening snow-covered trees and landscape of this portion of the Pollack estate, as well as the yellow lined roadway just ahead.
He looked around him, to confirm he was truly alone. When he didn’t see or hear anything strange, only his labored breaths and the water trickling through the nearby ice-covered stream that ran along the border of the estate property, he began to smile. He thanked God that his prayer had been heard, and vowed to look into rejoining the Methodist church his wife had been after him about for the past several years.
He prepared to get out of the vehicle, to calculate how best to get it back on the road again. This time, he casually glanced in the rearview mirror, not expecting to see anything.
Peter had time to gasp and that was all. Before he could muster a scream or mount any type of self-defense, the owner of the two glowing green eyes that stared back at him through the mirror’s reflection fell upon him, pulling its thick dark cloak along with it as the monster invaded the Jeep’s front seat.
Chapter Twenty
“With everything going on, it might be best to hold off until Thursday for the trip up to Breckenridge,” said Ruth, returning to her preferred spot on the sofa. She carried a mug of hot cocoa in her hands, and took a moment to blow on it. The heat from her homemade recipe had already melted the tiny marshmallows to where they disintegrated into bubbling white foam.
Nearing nine o’clock, she had just checked on Tyler, Jillian, and Christopher in the kitchen. All three were engaged in a lively game of ‘Blockus’, Tyler’s Christmas gift from Miriam’s younger sister, Marlene, living in California. Their laughter erupted behind her, and provided a powerful contrast to the somber mood in the living room.
“Are you sure ya’ll wouldn’t like some Southern cocoa?” she asked.
David waved off the offer. Miriam told her it sounded tempting, and that she would help herself to some in a little while. For the moment, they snuggled together on the loveseat, though neither one smiled. Both had spent the evening with watchful eyes on the telephone sitting nearby, waiting to hear either the latest news on Sara’s condition or John’s missing granddaughter.
“I’ve got enough cash on hand to reimburse you for what you’d lose on the first night’s reservation,” offered Ruth, resuming her first thought. “I can tell that neither of you have the heart for taking a vacation right now.”
“That’s awfully sweet of you, R
uth,” Miriam told her, smiling weakly. “Your presence alone has made the craziness around here bearable. Our holiday season would be a very difficult time—definitely, without the bright spots that you’ve made happen.”
Touched by this, tears filled Ruth’s eyes. She nodded her appreciation, as a worded response would surely bring a deluge of emotion beyond her control. After so many holiday seasons spent with just her beloved companion, Max, the twelve-year old Cocker Spaniel she was forced to put down just a few weeks ago, to feel like a valued family member filled her entire being with incredible joy.
“I feel the same way, Auntie,” said David, nodding toward Miriam. “And while we appreciate your offer, should we decide to cancel tomorrow’s trip, I’ve got it covered. Besides, the lodge manager is a buddy of mine from college. I’m sure Mark and I can work it out, if we need to postpone or even cancel the ski trip.”
“Well… if it turns out that you do need my help to pay for anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know,” she said, her countenance aglow while she sipped her cocoa.
***
Relieved that his aunt’s disposition had improved, it gave David the opportunity to broach a different subject with her, where several questions nagged at him. All revolved around the mysterious ruby discovered under her pillow. Especially curious as to how the precious stone escaped the entity’s notice, and yet drew the attention of his great grandfather’s spirit instead.
The most recent urge to bring it up had been inspired by what happened that afternoon, when he held the ruby, admiring its perfect shape and near-flawless clarity. Its only imperfection was a unique cloudiness inside the jewel, most noticeable when exposed to a strong light source.