The Eye of Madness (4 page)

“How did you get in the room without being affected?” Cecil asked.

“We grabbed a broom handle and stuck it into the room to turn on the lights,” Andrews interjected with slurred speech. “I'll be damned if it didn't feel like something was pulling on it.” Andrews took a final drag on his beer bottle and sat it on the end table next to him. He achieved a pretty good buzz this morning judging by the empty bottles lined up on the coffee table. Under normal circumstances, Cecil would have thought it was the alcohol talking. However, these were not normal circumstances. Normality in the world had been on vacation the past couple of months and incongruity took its place.

“After we got the light on,” Burt interrupted before Andrews could say something stupid. “Barbara was writhing on the floor and we heard you screaming in the bathroom. Turning the light on only forced whatever it was into the corners and shadows. The damned, well … darkness was still there like it was waiting for the light to go out again.”

“I ran over and tore the curtains and shutters down,” Derek said. “It all seemed to disappear and retreat into the bathroom. That's when Andrews tossed me the broom and I managed to flick the bathroom light on, and then tear down the curtains.”

“Then we saw your ass going all Dennis Wilson on us,” Andrews drawled. He was making a crass reference to the Beach Boys drummer who drowned while out on his yacht. “It was freaky … you were trying to swim through the bottom of the tub.”

“The important thing is,” Burt said, giving Andrews a cutting glare, “you and Barbara are all right.”

Andrews grinned back at Burt, but nobody noticed because Cecil exploded.

“Barbara is not okay!” he hissed through clinched teeth. “She is damn far from okay!”

Everyone stared at Cecil. This outburst was way out of character for him. Even Andrews seemed to sober a little.

“No … no, she's not,” Burt said. “But Cecil, at least she is alive. Dr. Winder says this dark crap is killing people all over the world … it almost killed you, buddy.”

Everyone, including Cecil, turned their attention to Dr. Winder who was still staring at the floor. He slowly raised his head and nodded.

“It's not so much the dark is killing people, it's more like the dark is causing them to kill themselves,” Dr. Winder said.

“Huh?” Derek blurted.

“It makes sense,” Burt said. “Cecil had no idea what he was doing, but he managed to fill up the bathtub and almost drown himself.” He paused and whispered to his friend. “What did you see, Cecil?”

It was as if Burt's voice was coming from somewhere far away, a safe distance from the canoe and the snakes. For an instant, Cecil was back there … remembering the horror, the terror and the pain. He shivered as if something cold and slimy slithered down his spine. He did not reply, he didn't have to because everyone understood. The details were not important, yet this was one case when the devil was definitely in the details.

He saw the snakes in his mind's eye and remembered the brutal cruelties committed by each one. These snakes must be the manifestation of humans who had committed horrible acts. An understanding began to form in his head, coalescing into a single word.

“Impals,” he muttered in a breathless whisper.

“Are you saying your father was right?” Burt said. “Are you saying this darkness is Impals?”

Cecil shook his head and sat down in the rocking chair. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. He then raised his head and scanned the faces of everyone in the group, finally coming to rest on Dr. Winder.

“No … something different,” he said, keeping his eyes on Dr. Winder as if seeking confirmation.

Dr. Winder glanced away. Everyone now turned to the doctor.

“How should I know what it is?” Dr. Winder snapped.

“You said the eye of the storm contained a different type of energy than the rest of the storm,” Burt said. “Is it possible this new energy could have manifested something else?”

“Of course it's possible!” Dr. Winder said. “But I don't know why in the hell you think I have any idea what it is!”

He reached in his shirt pocket and fished out a cigarette. With trembling hands he inserted it between his lips and lit it. He took a deep drag and exhaled a large puff of smoke, causing everyone to move back a few paces.

“Doctor,” Burt said in an even tone. “Do you think this darkness is Impals as we knew them?”

He took another drag off his cigarette and shook his head.

“No … no, not possible. The Impals disappeared, and then there was darkness. The energy was different, very different from the initial storm. A different manifestation … different energy … something new, something different … dark …” Dr. Winder's answer deteriorated into what sounded as incoherent rambling, although what he said made sense. Dr. Winder walked to the window and peered up at the sky. “Sky different … clouds different … different energy … not Impals,” he rambled.

As Dr. Winder continued his blathering, the men gaped at each other. Even Andrews seemed concerned.

“So, if it's not Impals,” Derek said, “then what is it?”

“Did you ever meet an evil Impal?” Cecil asked.

“Well … sure,” Burt said. “We ran into several real jerks.”

Cecil shook his head. “No, I'm not talking about jerks … I'm talking about evil,” he said.

“Well, what about those two pricks who beat you in your prison cell, or the two jerks who shot me for bounty money?” Burt suggested.

“They definitely fell into the category of a-hole, jerk and prick … and some a little on the stupid side, but … evil? They were not even close to the blackness I saw. I'm not just talking about an absence of light. I mean their heart and soul were black … uncaring and unremitting hatred … profound wickedness.”

“How the hell could you see that in all of them?” Burt asked.

Cecil shrugged. “I don't know, I can only tell you that I did. I know it as well as I know you, Burt.”

Burt shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on Cecil. “Jesus, what did you see, man?” he asked.

Cecil didn't reply, but Burt could tell by his expression that he should not press the question. He decided to approach from another angle. “So … they used to be human?” he asked.

Cecil nodded. “Well … they used to occupy a human body, but to call them human, well …” Cecil trailed off, he was at a loss of how to explain it to his friend.

“Demons?” Derek asked.

“I don't think so,” Cecil said. “Demons serve Satan. These things seemed to serve nothing but themselves and their own twisted desires. They were, well … black souls.”

The men sat in silence until Burt jumped up. “Hey, where's Dr. Winder?” he shouted.

They turned toward the window where he stood moments before. He was not there. It didn't take long to figure out where he went because the front door was standing wide open.

Almost tripping over each other, they sprinted to the door. Clambering onto the porch and down the steps, they spotted Dr. Winder a short distance away. He resembled a turkey caught outside in a rainstorm. He stared skyward with his mouth agape, mumbling nonsensical phrases.

“Einstein … thermodynamics … energy, different … very different … not Impals … different, different … the dark, energy,” he muttered then began pointing skywards as he walked towards the woods. “Sky … color … different,” he repeated over and over again.

The sky was different. When the Impals were here; it was lavender colored with yellowish clouds. Now it was a reddish tint with orange clouds. Nobody had any idea what it meant. The general consensus was it had something to do with the energy of the storm and now the mysterious energy of the eye.

The time to process what Dr. Winder was saying would come later because it suddenly occurred to everyone he was in grave danger. He was wandering toward the woods and the shadows.

“Dr. Winder!” Cecil screamed, his heart in his throat. “Don't go into the woods!”

Winder may as well have been a hundred miles away because he did not react to the screams of Cecil or anyone else. He stayed on course. His head in the air, he stumbled towards the darkest and most volatile area in the woods. The dark shadow cast by the massive canopy of trees seemed to undulate with excitement as Dr. Winder wandered closer. He would be in the shade in a matter of seconds. Everyone ran after him, trying to catch the doctor before it was too late, but he was too far away. By the time they reached the tree line, the screaming already started.

Dr. Winder shrieked in agony as the darkness engulfed him in a thick bank of smoke. It was all they could do to not go in after him, but the men knew better than to get any closer. Even though they were several yards away, they could still feel the dark. It seemed to be an impalpable, yet tangible, wave of hatred and malice radiating with the intensity of a forest fire. A moment later, Dr. Winder made an impossible leap. He shot straight up from the blackness and grasped the trunk of a large pine tree about seven feet off the ground. He then proceeded to climb with incredible speed and agility. He ascended more than thirty feet in a few seconds.

Dr. Winder climbed higher and higher, a column of smoky darkness trailing behind like an umbilical to Hell. A moment later he was out of sight. The screaming stopped and the woods fell silent. For a few seconds, they only heard the chilling hissing and clicking from the darkness.

“Dr. Winder?” Burt screamed.

In almost an answer to Burt's call, a blood-curdling scream erupted from high above. An instant later a silent flash of something, or someone, dropped from the trees and hit the ground with a sickening thud. Dr. Winder lay in a crumpled and disfigured mass a few feet from the darkness. He was dead.

CHAPTER 5

THE GENERAL

“There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.”

~George Washington

The room was as dark as a crypt. All of the lighting was shutoff … lamps, light fixtures, and even security lighting. The curtains were drawn tight over the three massive Bow windows. It was a bright and sunny day outside, but not a single speck of light made it into the old room. A room completely devoid of light in the middle of the day was unusual. Of course, it was not as odd as the circumstances. The eye of the cosmic storm now encompassed the Earth and this room, this dark room, was the Oval Office.

One person alone was supposed to sit behind the Resolute Desk, but he was now dead. The vice president had served as a puppet leader since the death of the president. Earlier, when the eye of the storm arrived, he was found in his bedroom upstairs lying in the bottom of a large walk-in closet. A foot-long wooden shoehorn protruded from his throat. The evidence suggested that the fatal wound was self-inflicted.

Two secret service agents wound up in the hospital trying to reach him. This was before someone brought in several large flashlights. The darkness managed to take the most important man in the world, even though he was only a life sized marionette. The puppet master sat alone in the Oval Office, listening to the whisperings of the dark and gloating.

“I was right,” General Ott Garrison thought to himself. “Now the Impals are showing their true face.”

He knew what the darkness was doing to people around the world, not to mention the former president/vice president, however … it did not bother him. Sure, he could hear the terrifying whispering and hissing coming from the dark, yet he was in no way bothered. Quite simply, he could pass through the darkness unmolested and unscathed. He was empowered and he was boastful. Arrogance swelled through him as he held up an unseen middle finger to the dark.

“Screw you!” he muttered, clenching his jaws.

The cadence and frequency of the inhuman whisperings changed. It was enough to satisfy the general that his taunt was received. After passing through a dark hallway of the White House, he noted how the darkness seemed to part in front of him. Making the Oval Office a ‘light free zone' was the final confirmation of what he believed.

“God chose me to rid the world of Impals,” he thought to himself. “Now he has shielded me from their evil. He has chosen me for a higher purpose.”

He slid out of the high backed leather chair and onto his knees between the desk and the window. He began praying, silently at first, and then raised his voice from a faint whisper to almost a yell.

“Dear Heavenly Father,

I pray this prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus Christ your one and only Son who died and rose again for remission of sin. I bind, rebuke and render powerless: all division, discord, disunity, strife, wrath, murder, criticism, condemnation, pride, envy, jealousy, gossip, slander, evil speaking, lying, false manifestations, lying signs and wonders, fear of deceiving spirits, and all familiar and territorial spirits.

I AM GOD'S CHILD! I RESIST THE DEVIL AND DECLARE THAT NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER. I AM THE RIGHTOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS … AMEN!”

He did not move and did not open his eyes for several moments after completing his prayer. He listened to the darkness, a faint grin forming at the corners of his mouth. The darkness … the Impals … the true face of evil was afraid of him. The relentless noise of the dark had subsided tenfold since he finished his prayer. The sound was now little more than a faint whisper from a distant room.

General Garrison rose to his feet and opened his eyes. He looked around him, seeing nothing in the pitch darkness, but, then again, he was seeing everything, wasn't he? He saw his destiny, his purpose, his important place in God's plan. He, and he alone, was chosen. Nothing could touch him because this was God's will and he was more than ready and able to carry out His will.