The Light Saga & Other Short Stories

“When was the first time you became aware of what you claim is a ‘presence’?” I asked Nikita. Her drawn face was framed by a black bob haircut, incidentally making her appear younger than her forty-two years. Although she had had two children already – a boy of seven and a five-year-old girl – she maintained her figure by visiting the gym every second day. That’s also where I had met her and heard about her “home invasion”.

“We’re not claiming anything,” her husband Travis hurriedly pointed out. “We’ve already told you that both of us heard the thumping clear as day, that nobody else was in the house except us when it happened,” he added.

I held up my hand, palm out, in an effort to soothe Travis. “I’m not doubting you guys,” I said hurriedly. “I just want to approach this from an objective point, from a scientific perspective devoid of any emotional attachment.”

“Xavier, how can you expect us to be unemotional about something like this?” Nikita now asked, her voice rising slightly in frustration. “We’ve been living with this … this whatever the hell it is in our house for close to three weeks now in the mistaken belief that it was all just our overactive imagination, but last night’s incident… I just don’t know. It’s become unbearable,” she ended, tightening her grip on Travis’ hand.

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to help you with, isn’t it? You asked me to investigate what’s happening in your house, so that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” I stated.

Although I am a personal trainer at Body Fit, I am also a paranormal investigator with a reliable track record. In the thirteen years that I had been investigating claims of hauntings or ghostly apparitions, I had never come across one that was genuinely paranormal. There was always a logical reason behind the strange noises, mysterious knocking, weird moans or unsettling rattling. I suspected that the current situation would be nothing different.

“Look,” Travis said, sitting forward on the sofa, gesturing with his right hand for emphasis. “The first time we became aware that there might be a presence or whatever in our house was three weeks ago, as Nikita said. But last night was the first time all of us were actually present in the house when we heard the unmistakable and extremely loud thump coming from the front of the house,” Travis explained. His penetrating blue eyes stared at me from a handsome face blessed with a dimpled chin. His blonde hair sported a buzz cut, reminding me that he had served for a while in the army. His entire body was tensed like a tightly wound spring.

Nikita nervously took up the narrative, her eyes filled with such fear that I felt the first stirrings of concern.

“On all the other occasions when we had heard the sounds, or things had fallen over for no obvious reason, one of us was not at home. It would happen either when I was alone at home with the children, or when Travis was the only one in the house. Last night, all of us were at home and each one of us clearly heard the bump. And it wasn’t just one loud bump,” Nikita revealed.

“It was five,” Travis continued, “each successive bump louder than the preceding one,” he said. “The last one was so thunderous that all the window frames in the entire house vibrated for nearly a full minute!”

“Before that, for the past three weeks, we’ve had wall hangings fall off hooks when there wasn’t a breeze blowing through the house; taps opening when no one had even touched them; lights turning on and off or flickering for no apparent reason,” Nikita explained.

“And before you ask,” Travis said, “yes, we’ve called in both electricians and plumbers to check out the house. They found nothing wrong,” he ended, sounding obviously frustrated.

I could see that recalling the incidents was agitating both Travis and Nikita; I needed to calm their panic quickly. I wanted to focus first on the most recent incident: the inexplicable noise. I thought eliminating possible causes for the noise might reduce their tension. Offering them a list of possibilities could be just the ticket.

“Guys, remember that I’m not disbelieving what you’re telling me. I accept that you utterly believe that you experienced something mysterious last night, but allow me to offer some alternatives that could have caused the noise. Are you open to this?” I asked to gauge their response.

“Sure, why not?” Travis said sarcastically.

“Go ahead, Xavier. Tell us what you believe could have made the noise even Gustav heard last night,” Nikita added. At mention of his name, their golden Labrador lifted his head from his paws, where he had been resting it, looking me straight in the eye. It unnerved me slightly to see the undeniable intellect behind those dark orbs of his, but I broke eye contact with the animal to offer my alternative explanations.

I opened my mouth to state that poor construction could be the reason for the loud sound, but I never got that far. An ear-splitting BOOM reverberated throughout the modest two-bedroom house, causing a vase placed in the middle of the coffee table to explode into shards of flying ceramic.

Gustav bounded up in fright, whining pathetically and backing up against Nikita’s legs. All of us had jumped to our feet when the clamour had hit. The Labrador had his tail tucked completely under him, his hackles raised to the maximum; he stared out into the passage beyond the lounge and growled deep in his throat. His coiled body was touching one of my legs; I could feel him trembling in stark terror.

Nikita was clinging to Travis so tightly that her nails were digging deeply into the flesh of his muscular chest. I stood with balled fists, my body ramrod straight, my eyes nearly popping from their sockets. My heart pounded so loudly that I could hear the blood rushing through my ears.

All four of us – three petrified humans and one terrified dog – gaped into the passage, waiting in utter dread for whatever had caused the roar to appear.

“Still think we are imagining things, buddy?” Travis said to me from the side of his mouth.

“Any clever alternative solution you have for that boom?” Nikita added. Both of them were staring into the brightly lit passage, not daring to move a muscle.

I am no coward, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have never felt such cowardice as I did at that moment. I prayed that Travis wouldn’t dare me to “investigate” the din, or that Nikita wouldn’t suggest that I walk out into the passage. To my profound relief, they did no such thing. Instead, my inquisitive mind defeated my basic instinct for survival; it mercilessly nudged me to find the cause of the deafening blast.

Fortunately, the children had been left at Nikita’s parents’ house, so they were safe for the moment. This thought went through my mind as I slowly approached the door leading to the passage. The lights started to flicker erratically; an impenetrable black pall filled the corridor, having moved in quick succession from the front door to the lounge entrance, engulfing the walkway within seconds. The blackness was accompanied by a cold so extreme that I could see the vapour of my breath, and I could hear crackling ice form upon the walls and furniture in the room. I trembled violently, as if I had stepped into a raging blizzard. From within the murky depths of the freezing darkness stepped an ominous, distinctly menacing figure still surrounded and obscured by clinging wisps of smoke.

From the figure streamed deathly cold waves that made me gasp involuntarily, as if I had been dunked in a tub filled with blocks of ice. I could hear Travis and Nikita’s teeth chatter as they stood behind me, huddled together for heat. Nikita was also fervently saying the Lord’s Prayer.

“Xavier,” Travis called out to me in a shivering voice, “what is that? God Almighty, what in heaven’s name is that?” he queried, his tone betraying his increasing terror. Gustav was whining and keening in a thin voice that set my teeth on edge. Nikita’s praying became louder.

“Keep back,” I said in mock bravado. “Whatever it is, it means us no good,” I added rather lamely. The figure continued to approach me as I stood facing it. Suddenly, I was assaulted by a foul odour that reminded me of offal, blood gone bad, and rotting meat. I gagged and dry retched instantly. The thing in front of me had stopped barely five feet away from me; the concealing clouds of black smoke finally dissipated, revealing what I could only describe as a demon.

“This can’t be real,” I whispered in disbelief. “I must be hallucinating,” I reasoned, until I heard Travis moan like a man who has gazed upon a vision of his own death. He prayed, “Dear God in Heaven, protect us against this demon, please.” Apparently, I was not tripping at all.

Incredibly, the demon had two pointy horns sprouting from a bald head that was covered in blackened, shrivelled skin. But when I looked more closely at the “horns”, I realised they were only nubs of bone. The demon had a face straight from hell: pitch black skin, a lick of flame instead of eyes in sockets sunk so deep they looked like miniature caverns. The demon’s nose appeared to have been hacked off, leaving two holes held tenuously together by cartilage. When my eyes lit upon the demon’s mouth, I wish I had been spared that image. A thin, purplish forked tongue flicked out from a maw filled with spear-like yellow teeth, as if tasting the air for our scent.

The demon moved so swiftly towards me that it seemed time had accelerated at lightning speed. Before I could even utter a yelp of surprise, the awful thing grabbed me by the throat with a sooty arm bulging with inhuman muscles. I knew I would not survive the encounter.

The fiend’s forked tongue shot out to lick my face from the left corner of my bottom lip, across the bridge of my nose to my right eye. It left a disgusting trail of slime that burned and itched slightly. I was also surprised by the texture of it; it felt like a cat’s raspy tongue. Although I wanted to hurl in abject nausea, I couldn’t because of the hellhound’s choke hold.

“Let him go, spawn of Satan!” Travis abruptly commanded as he stepped up to the nightmare from hell. Without releasing its hold on me or relaxing its grip, the demon swatted at Travis with its left arm, flinging the poor man across the room as if he weighed less than a feather. Travis crashed hard into the wall, staining it scarlet with blood trailing from his nose. He slumped in a heap on the floor, unconscious but alive.

“Foul Beast,” Nikita suddenly said right next to the demon. She held a silver container in her right hand; the container looked very much like the salt shaker in the shape of a lighthouse I had seen earlier on the kitchen table. “Eat this!” she shouted, hurling the entire contents of the shaker into the demon’s blazing eyes. I thought she must have lost her mind to think ordinary salt could harm the beast, until a surprising thing happened.

The demon howled as its entire face and head started to smoke, as if the salt had turned into acid. It staggered back blindly, releasing its death grip on my throat. I sucked in air in painful gulps, skittering back from the screeching and maddened hell spawn. I couldn’t compute the reason for its reaction.

Travis rose up slowly behind the demon. In his right hand he held a silver poker which he had grabbed from the fireplace. While the fiend was still distracted in its attempts to douse its burning face by swatting at it with its claws, Travis thrust the poker straight through its back. The tip of the poker burst out from the creature’s chest, lumps of flesh or organs clinging to it. The sight made my gorge rise again, but there was no time to hurl. I jumped into the attack.

“Stab him again, Travis!” I shouted as I pulled Nikita out of the way of a wild swing of the demon’s flailing arms. “Don’t give him a chance to recover!” I encouraged Travis.

“Nikita,” Travis screamed at his wife, “use the rest of the salt! Throw it on him!” Travis ordered her. I was yet again mystified as to how common salt could harm such a hellish fiend, but Nikita didn’t hesitate. She promptly grabbed a small brown paper bag from the coffee table, tore it open and flung the entire contents all over the demon. A pinkish-coloured cloud descended upon the still wailing nightmare creature. The result was stupendous.

Each piece of salt crystal burst into tiny embers as it alighted upon the creature, blanketing the beast from horned head to cloven hooves. Abruptly, the embers started to swirl like a mini tornado around the enveloped fiend, twisting faster and faster until the tornado blurred into a fiery cloud. With a resounding clap that shook the floor and caused the window panes to thrum in vibration, the embers imploded upon the encapsulated demon.

When we could safely look again upon the scene, the beast had vanished. Also gone was the icy grip of cold air. I gaped in astonished confusion, incapable of comprehending what had just transpired, or how we had managed to not only survive, but also conquer a freaking demon! Gustav barked loudly in obvious relief, then dashed to his food bowl to replenish his energy.

“How did you defeat that thing?” I asked, my voice filled with curiosity. “How is it possible that ordinary salt could vanquish it?” I nearly shouted in scepticism.

“That wasn’t ordinary salt, Xavier,” Travis said before Nikita continued.

“That was Himalayan salt, consecrated by having been prayed over it,” she said. Two things suddenly clicked in my mind.

I remembered hearing Nikita recite the Lord’s Prayer earlier. I had assumed she was just praying to God to protect us, but she had been doing much more. She had been praying over the salt crystals, imbuing them with her faith and the protection of God. The second thing that slotted into place in my analytical mind was the pink colour I had observed. Himalayan salt crystals are rose-pink in colour.

“It wasn’t only the prayer that empowered the crystals,” Travis added. “Those crystals come from an area situated between the Indus River and the Punjab Plain, a place much revered for its spiritual and religious significance,” he explained while I listened with growing clarity.

“The area has long been considered sacred because of its location, but also because the locals believe it to be a place of miracles,” Nikita elaborated. Both she and Travis smiled in spite of the fact that they were exhausted from our battle with evil.

“But how did you know the salt would work?” I asked in perplexity. “And if you already had some kind of defence, why ask me to come around tonight?” I asked, slightly vexed. After all, I could have been killed!

“Our apologies, Xavier,” Travis said hurriedly, while hot on his heels Nikita added, “We are truly sorry we got you involved in this mess.”

“Truth to tell, we had no idea that matters would escalate this drastically,” Travis explained. “We had hoped you could investigate and perhaps find some logical explanation for the occurrences, but –”

“Not in our wildest imaginings did we think we would actually face the creature that had invaded our home,” Nikita interrupted. “We thought if we asked you to poke around, you might discover some flaw in the design of the house, or any other plausible, rational explanation.”

“However, we had a contingency plan,” Travis admitted a bit sheepishly. “A few days ago, before we had thought of turning to you for your expertise, we had done some research. Purely by trial and error we had come across an obscure article about the hidden powers of Himalayan salt crystals,” Travis revealed. “The article had been written by a renowned Tibetan monk who claimed that aside from healing qualities, the crystals also contained great spiritual strength that could be used against evil in all its demonic forms.”

“It was a straw we grabbed with both hands,” Nikita concluded.

I sighed in relief that the ordeal had had a far more favourable outcome than could have been expected.

“Well, I guess my services are no longer required, so let me get myself home and straight to bed,” I said lightly in spite of still feeling the after effects of the nightmare. Travis and Nikita escorted me to the front door where Nikita hugged me in gratitude while Travis shook my hand firmly in companionship. It took me less than twenty minutes to reach home, utterly expended and feeling as if I had just spent a year working in a labour camp.

I ran a hot shower and luxuriated in the heat of the cleansing spray, letting the warmth soak benevolently into my body to banish the cold that seemed to have settled deep within my bones. It was while I was towelling my hair dry that I felt the alien nubs near my hairline. I froze. Tentatively, I reached out again to feel the knobby protrusions, parting the hair to look in the mirror at the hard bumps.

Unbidden, I gazed into my own eyes. A tiny flicker of flame blazed for a heartbeat in each eye.