`I don't believe in bogeymen - or the bogeyman,' he'd replied simply.
A smile curled on Jerry's lips, more a smirk than an expression of happiness, the kind that never failed to chill him, and as he thought of those words of yesteryear a cold fear from within, and then it became clear: Jerry was crazy, probably crazier than anyone he'd ever known.
`Show me the bogeyman and I'll show you the Loch Ness Monster,' he'd added.
Jerry had said, `But I saw it with my very own eyes.' His classmate, as persistent as he was eccentric, wasn't going to budge on what he'd thought had been a true occurrence. There is an expression: Don't try to teach the pig to fly - you'll frustrate the pig, and you'll waste your time. This statement applied to Jerry. His best recourse would be to ignore the fellow.
And ignored Jerry he had. He'd simply turned around and walked away.
Now, if only Jerry knew, he'd be laughing his lungs out.
Here, he saw no bogeyman, but he just knew he was around here somewhere.
Perhaps beyond the light at the end of the hallway.
Or even right beside him--watching and waiting.
Realizing that his life might be in danger, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and began to think. A plan for his next course of action was necessary in such a situation.
Seconds later he heard a voice call out--it was loud and clear: `Young man, you are one lost soul.' There was a tone of musicality to the voice, as though he were listening not to the bogeyman (bogeymen weren't supposed to sound this pleasant) but rather, some middle-aged broadcaster for a station that featured exclusively classical music. The voice continued to speak: `I don't know how you can manage - trying to survive with all these evil forces around you.'
As much as he wanted to get out of this quagmire he had to admit to himself that he would not, no matter how hard he tried, being able to free himself of the death that loomed just ahead of him.
The illogicality of the situation no longer tickled his funny bone. Instead, the spectre of death choked him from within the deepest recesses of his imagination. No longer did life seem as bleak as it had to him on many occasions before.
Not even hope resided within him anymore now. It had died moments ago. He knew that soon he would be next, and with death would come the end of all his dreams, aspirations, and ambitions.
It was at that moment when death had become the prominent idea in his mind that suddenly another thought welled from within: Maybe death wasn't so bad after all. Perhaps this bridge that connected one's life to the next, unpleasant as it may be, was a temporary stage. Confounded by the absurdness of the situation, however, fearful of what lied ahead, it was difficult to convince himself that the world beyond was pleasant.
Once again he thought of Jerry. The image of his friend laughing at him would not go away.
This drama, coloured by mockery, seemed dreamlike.
Yet he could not recall ever having dreamed something that seemed so real.
Like a Jack-in-the-box that had popped out of a box and stared at him with mocking eyes and a wry smile, the dark had not only frightened him, but was now making fun of him and the situation, one he could do absolutely nothing about.
He wished he could hit someone (or something), though there was no one to hit.
The voice said something else, though he did not hear it - either because he hadn't paid attention or it hadn't been loud enough. Then it suddenly stopped talking.
The light at the end of the hallway was becoming bigger now.
Moments later he found himself in darkness. This in spite of the fact that the light continued to grow - from above, in a realm that was separate from the one in which he found himself.
Then the voice - that middle-aged, genteel voice - called out again: `Come embrace the light,' it whispered.
He wasn't sure how he would do that since the light was way up and he way down.
`You'll have to jump to do that,' it suggested.
`You don't know what you're talking about,' he heard himself say.
Suddenly the light from above disappeared and he was surrounded by complete darkness.
Moments later, just as he began to regret having spoken back to the strange voice, his body became cold. For a nanosecond prior to the onslaught of the cold there had been a brief moment of intense bright light. If nothing before then had convinced him that he was dead, then the darkness had.
Gosh, how his stomach hurt. He would almost rather get whipped with several times than have to deal with the pain deep within his stomach. He felt like vomiting.
He now thought of the voice which moments ago had suggested he jump.
He had lost his perhaps only chance when he'd refused to jump to the light, and now, a bitter sadness like that what one might feel if being fed a cup of bad coffee before being sent off to the fields to die overcame him.
The light was no longer there, and for the first time in his life he felt truly alone, as alone as an astronaut might feel if cut from his station and forced to feel the dark loneliness of being separated from all of humanity while simultaneously knowing that he would soon die.
Finally, after all these years, he now believed in the bogeyman: it was the darkness, right here. It had no face, it spoke not, and in the absence of light, he felt as forlorn and vulnerable as if a thousand bogeymen surrounded him with snake tongues and eyes that glowed in the dark.
But wait - was this really death?
Moments later he felt a rush of warmth drape over him, but this was unlike anything that he'd experienced since the beginning of this nightmare, a warm blanket of peace and comfort. It felt as soothing as anything he'd ever felt before. It was like being a kid again. No worries or obligations. Mom having the nice cup of warm milk and chocolate-chip cookies every night before bedtime. The warmth that had begun at his toes had now reached his head. He felt dizzy, but it was a pleasant feeling. It was as though he had spent a long time outside in the cold and had suddenly been thrown inside of a warm pool.
Then the light reappeared. The familiar ball was above him now, much bigger than before, and with it came the unbearable cold of earlier. Curiously he no longer felt as icy as before. So if this was indeed Hell, it didn't seem as bad as first thought.
Heaven in Hell.
He didn't know why he'd thought it, only that he had.
What in the . . .
The light was becoming bigger and bigger now, and it was happening quickly. He considered running fast though discarded the idea when he thought of his inability moments before to run fast enough from the bogeyman that had, as it turned out, had never been there in the first place, having been just a figment of his imagination. Most likely his attempts at running fast would end up as nothing more than a brisk walk.
The light was closer. At any moment it would reach him and then only God knew what would happen to him.
Now the light was only seconds away.
He ran, and to his surprise was able to sprint at the pace he would if he'd be running in his waking life.
But the light was too quick, much so, and within seconds he was completely enveloped in an immense sea of bright white.
Death was still the main idea in his mind, thought he no longer found himself troubled by the possibility of unpleasant things on the other side.
He prepared himself for whatever world lay beyond.
He felt stiffness in his body. It was paralysation, though it was a different kind of paralysation, kind of like the one you'd get when you found yourself all alone in the room after just awakening, not being able to move, though scared as heck.
But that's when you were dreaming that you had nothing to worry about. He wasn't dreaming, though, he was convinced. Instead, he'd been thrown into some dimension far away from the reality that he'd known throughout his life.
He felt his heart beating rapidly. Gosh, how have I gotten into this mess? He asked himself. What have I done?
Then the sound: brrriiiiiing. As though a phone ringing. He
covered his ears with his hands yet that did nothing to word off the cacophony. In fact, it got louder with each passing minute. My God, he thought, first the interrogation and now these assaulting sounds. What the fuck is going on? He blinked once, hoping that perhaps this was a bad, yet when he opened his eyes again he noticed he was in the very same place.
He suddenly realised that he was in his own room.
Then he noticed a light--a bright ball in the distance. He noticed it becoming bigger. The light was painful for his eyes. He squinted.
`Who are you? What do you want?' he asked in a trembling voice.
No response.
And of all a sudden, the interrogator in this dream - if it was one - a man. Someone whom he'd never seen before.
`You,' he said in a trembling voice. `Who are you?'
`I am just a man . . . one whose life you cut short on earth.'
He wanted to say something else yet he was paralyzed by fear.
`It happened during the war . . . the one you created. And you sent me off to die.'
And then all of a sudden there was a bright ball that appeared in the sky. He covered his eyes to ward off the pain from the ball. It also began to feel hot in here. Gosh, he thought, this feels like an oven. He thought he'd bake until he turned into ashes and then the temperature around him at once became normal again, and he suddenly heard a voice: `I'm back.'
It was the damn investigator again. In his chair he sat--the same one from moments ago. This time he had a smile on his face.
`It's you again,' he murmured.
`You're on the money.'
`What do you want from me? Where am I?'
Then it suddenly turned dark. It was so dark that he couldn't even see his hands in front of him.
`So you said I murdered the woman and now you're saying that I murdered this man, too?'
The interrogator nodded.
`I know nothing about him, just as I know nothing about this man.'
`You must understand one thing.'
He waited.
`And that is, you're paying an account not only for this man and woman but . . .' There was a pause. The interrogator's feet came down from the table to the floor. There was a loud bong, which rattled him from his seat. `Well, let me just say it this way, you're not going to escape this interrogation anytime soon.'
And then suddenly the memories came to him, slowly but surely. Ever since the beginning of this interrogation, this second one, he'd had a faint idea that he'd known these people from before. From somewhere in his past. He hadn't believed in reincarnation all his life. He'd thought that when you die absolutely nothing happens to you other than you decompose. You don't go anywhere else. There was no Heaven and no Hell. Because there was no God. But now, he was slowly but surely being convinced that there was a life beyond this one and that one had to be held accountable for all the good and evil that one has committed in life.
`There was a nuclear war two days ago. Nineteen hundred people died. Infants, the elderly and just regular people like you and I.'
`And?'
`You must understand one thing,' the interrogator explained. `Until you are interrogated about each one, you will not be able to go on to the next level.'
He waited.
`There was once a world leader, a demagogue, who rose to power in the late twentieth century. He was responsible for the death of eighteen million people. He was the second Adolph Hitler. He made Hitler look like Gandhi.'
`You're saying I was responsible for all of this? But how?'
The idea that he had become a world leader seemed utterly ridiculous. First of all he had very little interest in politics. And secondly, he didn't consider himself a particularly social person. Both of these qualities were needed if one hoped to pursue a career in politics. Finally, he wasn't an above-average public speaker and moreover, he didn't have a large vocabulary like many a politician should have. And yet, as one leader of a very rich country in the twentieth century demonstrated, you didn't need this last one.
`When did I become world leader?' he asked, shaking slightly.
`That was in the year 2017. Of course, that was in a different world.'
`You probably don't remember it, but it's true. And we must ask you about all those people that died. Only after can you be considered for the next step.'
He suddenly remembered a camp. Though he'd long considered it a dream and not reality. He shuddered.
`And ten years after you killed your wife, you ran for President of the country. You promised a better life for all citizens of the nation. And then, two years into your term you became a demagogue.'
Slowly the images start coming back to him. It was as if he were summoning a dream of long ago. He remembered having run for President. With a landslide victory, he'd won the presidency. Then all of a sudden he became very unpopular, both at home and abroad, and just as his popularity began to wane, the country was thrown into a war.
And then he suddenly thought to himself that perhaps when we dream, those dreams are maybe parts of one's past.
`And then, just like that, you became the `Devil', as opponents like to call you. And you pressed the button that caused ninety-nine million people to die.'
`And so what happened to me? Was I like assassinated?'
`As the Allied Forces approached you, and you found out you had nowhere else to run, you decided, according to your fellow combats, to take your own life by shooting yourself in your head.'
He shuddered. He could never take his own life. He could not fathom putting a gun to his head. He'd once seen a Pennsylvania politician on live TV blow his brains out - almost literally - in the mid eighties when he was six and had since then had a great disliking for guns. He certainly didn't want to go the way the beleaguered politician had. `You mean I shot myself?'
The interrogator nodded. `With one shot to the head. It was a Weston .32. It literally blew your head to pieces.'
`You mean, like Adolph Hitler?'
`Like Adolph Hitler.'
`So you're saying that this David Watcher is one of the victims of my holocaust?'
`He is not the only one.' The officer rose in his chair. He pointed at him with a long finger and added, `There are eleven million people in total. And until you face trial for each and every one I'm afraid we are not going to be able to let you go.'
A tear fell down his face. He hadn't noticed it until his eyes were beginning to get watery. He wiped them with his hand.
`Don't cry. It's not as bad as it seems,' the officer assured him.
`But I didn't think judgment day would be such a long process.'
`It will happen to all of us someday. I, for one, have gone through my judgment day several years ago. It was decided after I went through the process that I would become a judge. And so here I am now.' The officer walked towards him. `One announcement I have to make, though.'
`What is that?'
`Heaven you have no chance of ever seeing,' the interrogator said simply.
`What do you mean?'
`Well, it's just that you were so bad that the Creator doesn't want you there.' He paused. `You may even spend eternity in Hell.'
The tears had stopped falling, though he still felt an uneasiness inside. The prospect of spending Hell for eternity seriously bothered him.
`Wait a minute!' he screamed.
`Yes?'
`You're saying that I'll have to respond to all those murders?' he said, incredulous.
The man nodded.
`But?'
`But . . . there is no `but.' You'll just have to be held accountable.'
`Why do I have someone different appearing from time to time?'
`What you're doing is swimming from parallel universes. You'll do this until you're ready for the next step.'
`Show me proof that I'm the one who committed all those horrible atrocities.'
`Out of those numbers of people, there were two-hundred thousand. Which means, fifteen percent were children.'
He looked up to the sky, where cumulous crowds blanketed the infinite blue. To the east, a small sun shone through a blue patch, and to the west, the fat moon glimpsed at the barren earth (if this was earth, he thought) below.
`Who the hell are you all? What the fuck do you want from me?' He'd rarely used foul language during his lifetime, yet here he was, using what was perhaps the dirtiest word in the English language. He noticed his body shaking.
As expect he received no reply. Instead, a soft wind blew in against him, and the sun and moon continued observing him through the thick clouds.
Now, finally, he was convinced that he was in Hell. Now, at last, he was sure that Hell wasn't a place necessarily where you burned forever and for long periods of time, but rather, somewhere where you go through several different levels, each a bitter reminder of the stage before, sort of like perpetual déjà vu, one from which there seemed to be no escape.
`You have anything to say?'
`But I'm not the one who killed them. What are you talking about?'
Just then the man opened the drawer and pulled out a photo. He placed it on the table. `Here, go take a look.'
He rose in his chair and approached the table. He grabbed the picture.
It was him, all right, though much younger. Also, in the background was a Beatles poster, and a record player. `It sure looks like me.' He paused. `Although it looks like a different time. I wasn't that age in the sixties - I was only three then.'
`Take a look at the book on the shelf.'
Horror Express Volume Two Page 15