IS

I ventured out onto the deck, and then further still out into the yard, where I was overcome with the sight of pure greatness. The sky had turned magnificent in a brilliant canvas of deep fiery reds and incandescent purples and blues, as the once dominating sun made its faltering transition further into the horizon.

Just as many nights before this one, I stood there in awe, feeling blessed to be a witness to such beauty. I don’t believe that as a child I would have acknowledged this splendor. I wouldn’t have suppressed or denied it, I simply wouldn’t have necessarily seen it—thus fortifying the common difference between the young and the old.

I don’t know if it was because of what I thought I was about to face on that night that made this sunset so endearing to me, or that this actually was the most incredible sight that I had ever seen, but I felt an extraordinary bond to this particular display tonight. So much so, in fact, that as the colors began to fade away to shades of grey, I felt overcome with a sad sense of emptiness; that time had run out for me to witness anything beautiful ever again… and I quietly wept.

“Why do you weep, Joshua Stone?” I heard my voice ask. I was overcome with panic at the realization that I had put myself in a vulnerable state. I was now out in the open air, and on the darker side of the border between day and night. My eyes began their frantic search for an oddly announced visitor.

“Josh me boy!” I heard Scott’s voice call out to me from two yards over. I gladly went to him to escape whatever was making me frightened and uncomfortable.

“Hey brother, what’s happening?” I asked, as I moved closer to him, still nervously scanning the area while trying to maintain a nonchalant persona.

“Hey brother, I’m over here!” he said, while trying to contain my attention.

“Yeah, sorry, I was just looking…”

“Yeah?” he asked, while waiting for me to finish.

I quickly blurted out the first thing that came to my head. “Deer… I was looking for deer.”

“Fuck deer!” Scott yelled. “I got a new drink that you’re going to love! Besides, from what I hear, Freddie Krueger’s been taking care of the deer around here!” he shouted out, laughing with no regard to what had actually happened to that poor innocent beast two days ago.

I couldn’t help but think that if he had seen what I and half the neighborhood had seen at the baseball diamond, he probably wouldn’t have made that remark. I continued to monitor the grounds around us.

“Come on brother–-one drink!” he said as he motioned for me to follow.

I smiled, jumped the fence, and shadowed my friend, but not without feeling that I was making a terrible mistake.

As we entered his kitchen, Scott’s wife, Diane, was clearing the table from their recent dinner. “Hey Josh! Are you hungry?” Diane asked. “Got plenty here—don’t imagine you’ve been eating all that good with Corey and the kids gone.” She then turned around and had to stop herself, I’m sure, from making obvious her reaction to my disheveled appearance.

“No thanks Di, I’m fine,” I answered, even though the existing aroma was killing me.

“Did you see that sunset? It was to die for!” she exclaimed.

The irony of her unwitting remark was killing me also, and my eyes remained locked to the slowly darkening dusk outside.

Scott had finished his concoction and placed a glass of it on the table in front of me. “Okay. This is called an Alien Secretion,” he boasted, while rubbing his hands together in anticipation of what my response would be.

“What?”

“I know! What a cool name! Who thinks of these names anyway? It’s got a melon liqueur, some coconut rum, and…”

“I gotta go!” I said, as I slid my chair back and stood up, making my way to the door wall.

“Seriously? What about your drink?” he asked with surprise plastered across his face.

“Sorry buddy, I just can’t right now. Something important I have to take care of,” and I slid out the door.

Scott looked at his wife, who also had a confused look. She shrugged her shoulders and left the room.

He then took a deep breath, tipped back a good long swallow of his creation, and set his glass down, savoring the flavors in his mouth. “Ah. Alien!” he proudly announced to himself.

Once outside, I kept close attention on my surroundings as I approached the gate. It occurred to me as I lifted the latch, that I had never bothered to apologize for getting sick in his yard the other night. I looked back to see Scott in the window, tipping back yet another swallow of his drink. Oh well, that time had passed, and everything had gone on as normal–-except for me, of course.

The dusk had turned to night, and I was now making my way once again along the field side of the fence line towards my house. “Stupid-stupid-stupid…” I continued whispering and scolding myself, feeling just the same as I did on the path that night. The night I had also put myself in an unfortunate position, and had been ultimately chased by what I could only assume was the evil I would most likely be facing sometime yet again tonight, when an uncanny feeling swept over me, stopping me dead in my tracks.

There was no smell, and there was no sound, but there was something; something that reached into my soul and had its way with me. I began to move forward again, the hairs on the back of my neck all standing at attention, and my legs became heavy with every step that brought me closer to the end of the chain linked barrier which spanned the length of practically every house that backed up to the school.

I only needed to travel the distance of three of those houses, but that seemed like forever. I nervously turned and looked down the long span of fence behind me. There was no moon, and there were no stars present tonight, as they must have been in hiding. And who could blame them when everything normal and beautiful had gone away, making way for the ugliness that only I alone would face?

I heard the house phone ringing as I moved around the last post and into my yard, shocked at the sight of my door wall that I had left open earlier, before I had become detained and another night had snuck up behind me. As I stepped up onto the deck, the ringing stopped. To my surprise, no message was left. The ringing started again. I ran to the phone, as my emotions had changed, and I now needed to hear from my family.

“Hello? Corey?” there was only silence.

“Alley?” I stood there, waiting, and then expecting to hear a familiar voice, when a crackling and disturbing whisper finally made an eerie announcement through the receiver.

“Time for you—Jo-Shu-wa!”

I slammed the phone down on the base and backed away. Seconds later it rang again, teasing me. I lunged forward and attacked the phone with terrified anger, frantically fumbling with it until my grasp was final and secure.

“Go back to where you came from! Leave me alone now!” I screamed, shaking with an empowering sense of finality in my voice.

“Dad?” Alley’s voice called to me, scared, and yet… not surprised.

“Alley? Alley!” I experienced a small taste of normalcy again as I listened to my little peanut’s voice say my name. God, I had missed her. My eyes watered with intense sadness, picturing all three of their faces in my mind’s eye. I tried to contain my emotions, but submitted to heartbreak. I choked out the words “I love you” through the phone.

“I love you too Dad! I was so scared when I couldn’t get a hold of you!” she answered back, also fighting through choking emotions to get out words of her own. “Dad! My dreams! They’re not dreams, dad! I can see what’s happening. I can see what’s happening to you!”

And then with the next words she spoke, I felt the beating of my heart stall for the moment, and then continue beating again—harder and faster with every word she spoke thereafter.

“I can see him Dad…the white monster!” As she went on to tell me more, I could hear the painful fear in her voice as she fought to control it, while going into explicit detail of the visions she had experienced over the past couple days. At first she conveyed only terror, and then as her stories progressed, there were times I could actually hear an elevated level of excitement in her voice, as she tried her best to express what she had experienced, or seen.

It became close to impossible for me to speak after she had finished with everything she needed to tell me. She eventually broke down and cried. Probably one of the hardest things to experience as a parent is to know your child needs you, but you are physically unable to be there for them. My heart was breaking.

“Alley! Listen to me, honey!” I tried to be strong for her. “Are you listening?”

I heard her sobs begin to falter. “Your Dad is going to take care of this, and everything will be okay again! Do you hear me?” I put so much positive emotion into what I was telling her, that I almost started to believe it myself.

“But Dad, how are you going to—”

“Don’t you worry about that!” I interrupted, trying my best to put her fears to rest. “I will. That’s all you need to know.” I felt that I’d bitten off more than I could possibly chew with such a promise, but it needed to be said. “Where’s your mother? Does she know about any of this?” I asked.

“She’s at the store with Grandma. I haven’t tried to tell her. I didn’t think she’d understand… dad, I don’t understand!” and then she began to cry again.

“Listen. Listen. Listen,” I soothed as I tried to intervene her sobs before they got out of control. “Honey, I’m not sure I understand either, but I’ll figure this all out and take care of everything! Okay?” My short speech was followed by silence. I asked again, “Okay?”

“Okay, Dad” she finally answered, still choked up a little. “I love you!”

“I love you too!” I answered, feeling that somehow I had maybe helped in some small way. But with everything she had seen my telling her that everything was going to be all right was most likely equivalent to spitting on a bonfire. “Where’s your brother?” I asked.

“He went with Mom and Grandma. I stayed home with Papa.”

“Please tell your mother to call me on the house phone when she gets a chance… and I’ll talk to you tomorrow honey. Okay?”

“Okay, Dad” she answered.

“By the way. Who’s phone are you using?” I asked.

“Grandma’s. She thinks she misplaced it for the time being… I think I’ll have to find it for her tomorrow,” she said with a cute giggle.

“Oh! You’re mean!” I responded, happy just to hear her laugh again. “Honey, if you need to get in touch with me don’t hesitate to call. But you know you’ll have to call the house again, right?

“Yeah. Cell phones aren’t waterproof!” she added with a smart tone.

“That’s right, wise guy!” I responded back. I then told her goodbye and hung up the phone, shaking my head in disbelief of how she could have known about my recent aquatic adventure. And then the thought of water brought about an entirely different subject altogether, as I looked at my reflection in the window in front of me. I was disgusting, and in dire need of a good hot shower. How embarrassing that Scott and his wife had seen and smelled me in this condition. I would later have to save face with the two of them by making up some horrific story.

While I moved through the house, checking every window and door to make sure I was sealed and locked in, I tried to think of what I could possibly come up with that would match the real horror I had actually gone through. Oh-–that’s right–-it would have to be believable, too!

I stood there, staring, my eyes frozen to one blank spot on the wall for a minute or so. I then yawned, giving up with the task, and headed for the master bath. I don’t know why, but I felt more at ease with the door to the bathroom open, as I lost myself in warm hypnotic pleasure running over and down my face and body, soothing my injured and aching areas while washing away the stink of everything I had gone through. I’d forgotten the simple pleasure of its warm revitalizing qualities. And I found myself humming along to an old Motown classic on the radio, when the music stopped and everything went dark.

Terrified, I froze there, unresponsive as the wide stream of water flooded the side of my face, making it hard to breathe, when it probably would have been just as hard to breathe without it. Finally, I reached blindly into the blackness, feeling for and finding the faucet. I wasn’t cold, but as I stayed there naked and still, I was shaking as the water came to a slow drip, thankful that for the moment, and several moments thereafter, It was the only thing I heard until the squeak of a loose floor board signaled one of my then least-favorite senses, that someone or something was approaching, or at the very least, standing somewhere in the hallway just outside the door.

“Hello?” I shouted. The deadening silence was soon accompanied by the unnerving sound of a child’s giggle. It only took seconds before I realized that the child’s laugh was that of my daughter.

“Dad? Daddy!” It called-–and toyed with me.

“You son-of-a-bitch!” I screamed. I then bolted through the shower curtain and into the door, shoving it closed and locking it, unintentionally ripping the curtain from its rings in the process. Now, I wasn’t stupid, only scared, as I knew he had the strength to go through that, or any door. I found myself backing up to the far wall across from it. I stood there bare-assed and shaking even harder, as I made a feeble attempt to protect myself by tearing the towel bar from the wall behind me. It was the only thing I had. After that, I had no choice but to remain there, naked and pathetic, waiting for it to make its move.

“Daddy! Open the door, daddy,” it continued, testing me, cutting away at my sanity, which was now only half present, at best. I remained quiet and trembling, fighting through the tears, as I pulled the chrome bar close to my bare chest, while it continued to taunt me even further.

“Daddy? Don’t you love me anymore, Daddy? Say you still love me. Please Daddy, please!”

“Damn you-straight to Hell,” I quietly cried under my breath, the tears broke free and began running the length of my face, ending on the cool ceramic floor beneath my feet. It then became silent for a short time, before pounding hard three times at the door, followed by a deep disturbing voice that resembled Satan himself. “Please daddy, please!” And then with three more thunderous pounds at the door, it was silent.

I knew it could have killed me if that was what it wanted. No, it was playing with me; pushing the limits of my humanity once again. And as I remained, listening for any sign that it was still out there, my tormented mind came to a conclusion as to why he hadn’t yet ended my life… Powder was still alive, somewhere out there lurking in the shadows, hopefully waiting for his time to come to my rescue—assuming of course that he could possibly be my hero, that is. Maybe I was assuming too much. Maybe he wasn’t suited to be a hero at all, and was at that very moment, fleeing to save his own disgusting skin. That must have been him that I heard earlier this evening, possibly hiding within the dense pine trees that surrounded me, just before I left to see Scott.

Maybe I should have at least acknowledged him then, as I might never see, or hear from him again.