“Get down!” The order is drowned out by the explosions and the crack of bullets. “Our reinforcements are not coming.” I can just barely hear my C.O. shouting with the ringing in my ears. We are hiding in a ditch with the rest of the platoon. I know how this ends. Very few of us are going to make it out of this alive.
I can see the mortar coming. It’s almost as if it knows exactly where we were hiding. As it moves closer, I can hear it screaming, rushing through the air. The mortar hits about ten feet away from where I’m taking cover, but at first it seems to be a dud. It doesn’t matter, I’m not going to stick around to find out. It’s only on a delay, but I can’t move fast enough to get away in time.
* * *
With a bright flash of white and a loud band, Virgil woke up from this terrible memory of war. Usually after one of his nightmares he would go outside and take a short walk to calm his nerves, but the rain was coming down hard this night so he was more or less stuck inside. Unable to get back to sleep, he decided to watch T.V. He went out to the living room in order to while away the hours of this uneasy night downstairs.
As he stepped out of his bedroom, a chill ran down his back. He couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong. Looking to his left, he saw the door at the end of the hall, still closed, untouched as it had been for the past eighteen years. Upon seeing this, he felt relieved and continued to make his way downstairs.
All that was playing at this time of night were infomercials and old reruns of shows he had watched when he was a child, a happier time before his wars. His racing mind kept him somewhere else. It kept wondering, unable to focus on falling asleep or the T.V. It took hours for Virgil to fall asleep again, but when he did, he found his dreams to hold no more comfort than before.
* * *
The hospital bed is terribly uncomfortable. You would think that they could find something a little more comfortable for the people who were just torn through by fire and metal. The cries and screams inside the building are far more terrifying than those found out on the battlefield.
“Pvt. Kane,” the surgeon interrupts the surrounding noises. “You are quite lucky to be alive. The shrapnel missed any major organs and arteries. It was a risky surgery, but I was able to remove all of it without a problem, however, your left arm was sustained second and third degree burns from the explosion. You won’t have any feeling along the back of your hand and half way up your arm. But not to worry, after some time in physical therapy, your arm will strengthen nearly back to normal.”
I’m disappointed at this news, since I am left handed, but I’m still in shock from the events on the battlefield, so I don’t process this fully. I turn to him and say, “thanks doc. Where can I get a damn beer.”
He ignores this request saying, “get some rest.” And with that he leaves me in the care of the nurse.
As I first lay eyes upon her I can feel my heart skip a beat, She has bright red hair that falls in curls past her shoulders, deep blue eyes, and thick lips that I can’t help but stare at as she says, “Hello Pvt. Kane, how are we doing today,” in a smoky voice that if I were standing would have left me weak in the knees, but the moment she leaves my sight, a strong feeling of nausea overwhelms me, and I can’t move for fear of losing whatever might be left in my stomach. She returns and everything steadies, I can tell there is something beyond the natural that is affecting me, but at the moment I don’t care. She says, “I’m going to check your blood pressure,” and as she bends down to grab my arm she exposes her cleavage, looking as if they were ready to burst from her tight fitting blouse. Being so distracted I barely notice that I feel very little as she wraps the strap around my arm, but then suddenly I feel a sharp stinging sensation on the back of my hand as she grabs it with her own.
* * *
That’s when he woke up for the second time. His dream gave him no rest. He worried that she may have gotten out. He had to be sure that he and his son were still safe, so he ran upstairs too make sure that his protections were still in place. The iron door remained closed, as it had been when he checked only hours earlier. He was once again at ease.
However, he could not tell why, after all these years, his hand had started to hurt again, but he knew that he could not ignore it for much longer. He had been ignoring the signs for some time now, and he knew that eventually his past would catch up to him. Then it all came rushing back, the life that he once lived. The rush came on so fast that he nearly collapsed in the hallway.
* * *
I am fifteen, hanging out with my older brother, Sean. We have always been pretty close, regardless of the five year difference between us. We are out walking near the edge of a forest, and even though it is midday, and the sun is hanging high, unblocked by clouds, we cannot see more than three feet into the forest because of the thick canopy blocking out all of the light.
What happens next is quick and unexpected, there is nothing I can do. When I turn back I just barely see him being dragged away into the darkness by figure draped in shadow. I freeze from the fear that overcomes me, I cannot see where they went, so there is no possibility of following them. I fear that I will never see him again. I am wrong of course, eventually he does make it out of the woods, but it would not be for another three years. When he does return, he does not seem to have aged a day though he is bloody and bruised. He will not talk about what happened to him. We do not talk much at all after that, not for the next year.
He has started to drink heavily, he goes out all night and sleeps all day. Finally, one night he wakes me up saying, “Virge, I have to tell you something, and I need you to just listen. The day that I was taken into the forest. When that beast grabbed me, I was paralyzed, like it had a stinger or something. Then it cut me open, slit my wrists.” He shows me the scars on his arms, “and drained a lot of my blood.
“I could have sworn I had been sent to hell. Every inch of my body was in agonizing pain. A day went by before I started to regain the ability to move again, and in that time I suffered through the most horrifying hallucinations. I felt like my skin was being pulled from my body one strip at a time, and there was a fire inside me that could not be put out, I could feel my blood boiling, but when it was over the creature came back and continued this for a week. After that it just left me there, probably thinking I would die. When had finally become lucid enough to pull myself up I crawled away from that place in the opposite direction from which I thought the creature had gone.
“Eventually I came to the edge of the forest by the side of a road where somebody stopped to pick me up and drove me to the hospital. You say that it was three years before I returned, but those seven days are all I can remember. Since then I have been trying to find out what it was that kept me there, and I have found that there are far more like it hiding in our world. I go out at night to find ways to kill the things that I previously thought only existed in myth.
“I have found the way back to where it kidnapped me, but I need your help to kill it though.”
I don’t believe him of course. He reeks of Whiskey, and I’m sure he is just trying to rationalize the trauma that has happened to him and turn it into something he can fight, but I go with him anyways. I don’t know why exactly, maybe I am just happy that he is talking to me again. I have tried to block out the day that he disappeared. I don’t want to think about it. It doesn’t matter to me anymore, now that he is back. If I can help him I will, and if playing out this delusion helps then that is what I am going to do, so I ask him, “What do you need me to do?”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be in any harm, I just need you to keep me from getting lost,” he reassures me.
I make myself a cup of coffee to wake me up, and we set out back to the forest. When we get to the edge of the forest by the side of the road, where Sean was found, he pulled out from his bag a long bunch of rope and tied one end around himself. He gave the other end to me and said, “I need you to hold the end of this rope and anchor me here so that I can find my way back.”
“Okay, Theseus,” I say, “but why can’t you just tie it to, I don’t know, that road sign over there, or a tree, or the car?”
“You know, that did not occur to me. I guess I don’t need your help. Oh well.”
“Alright then, as long as I’m here, I might as well come with you.”
“Well that’s not going to happen, I only brought one rope.”
“I’ll just hold on to yours.”
“Fine, but stay back. I’m not going to let you get hurt.”
* * *
Virgil snapped back to reality just in time. He pulled his hand back from the silver door handle and turned around. He was immediately overwhelmed with a feeling of nausea, but he fought through it and went downstairs to start his day by making breakfast for his son, Jack, and himself. When they sat down to eat, he stared at jack and thought about the life he had created for the both of them.
He had gotten used to the normal, safe life, no more having to watch his back, no more monsters hiding behind every corner, at least none that he would go looking for. He knew they would always be there, but he had become accustomed to ignoring the signs. So long as it didn’t come looking for him, he had no problem leaving well enough alone. His life was as normal as the next, and anyone who had met him would not have expected otherwise. But he felt all of that changing now, he didn’t want to believe it but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that everything that he had built for the two of them was soon to be coming to an end. Something was about to happen, but he did not know what. Virgil had protected his son from his old life for so long. In fact he was the reason that Virgil had stopped his war with the monsters. He knew now that in order to keep protecting Jack, he would have to tell him everything about what was really out in the world waiting for him.
Virgil was successful, so far, at keeping Jack out of the life that he was thrust into. Jack Loved his father, but he always thought that he was a little distant. He had no idea what he was going to come home to after school. He would sit with his friends during lunch and they would laugh at what had happened during the day. He was happy with his life and he didn’t expect it to change. He would have never expected what was to come. When he made it home that day his father found him and told him that they needed to talk. ‘Sit down Jack, I have something very important that you need to hear,” Virgil said.
Jack got an uneasy feeling. “What’s going on?”
“Son, I have kept something from you that I hoped you might never have to learn, but it seems that I may not be able to keep it from you any longer. It’s better that I tell you now then you learn first hand. There is no easy way to put this, but our world is a lot bigger than you have been lead to believe. I understand that this is hard for you to take in, but upstairs behind the door that I keep locked at all times is trapped a demon that once tried to kill me and is responsible for the death of your mother. I have a feeling that after all of this time something is about to happen that might release this demon and put both of us in danger. I tell you this because you need to be prepared for what is about to come.”
“Dad are you alright, I think you’ve been watching too many movies,” Jack said, half joking, half worried that his father may have lost it. “There is nothing out there, don’t you think that if there were people would know about these things, these monsters.” He didn’t want to show it but he was scared by the idea that this might be true.
“Of course these things have been kept secret from us. The monsters out there want to stay hidden. They feed off of us. If they had made themselves known then everybody would be able to fight back. So long as their existence is thought of as a myth they can survive. I know this is hard to believe, but if you don’t prepare, you may not survive. It is important that I train you for what’s to come.”
“Okay, dad, I’ll do this with you, if you think it will keep me safe.”
After that they enjoyed their night together and went about as if this conversation never happened. That night Jack had the most vivid dream he had ever had.
* * *
I was floating down a river, it is quite calming. I’m completely alone, not another living thing in sight. As I got further down the river there was someone there standing in the river, The most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her strawberry hair fell down past her shoulders. Her blue eyes caught mine and I fell into them. She was completely naked but was covered by the water that rushed past her.
She was calling to me. “Jack, Jack, come to me, be with me, don’t ever leave me, Jack.” her sweet sugary voice was hypnotizing. I couldn’t help but follow her as she left the water and walked through a meadow of flowers that grew from her footsteps, all along the way shou would keep calling me over and over again. “Jack, Jack, come to me, be with me, don’t ever leave me, Jack.”
* * *
Jack woke up in the morning, he felt overwhelmed with infatuation for this mysterious dream woman. he got out of bed and left his room. When he got into the hallway, he turned towards the iron door at the far end of the hall and started walking, all the while the voice of the woman repeated over and over again in his head. “Jack, Jack, come to me, be with me, don’t ever leave me, Jack.” He reached the door, turned the knob, and entered the room that had been left untouched for so very long.
