by Caleb Smith
Evelyn had brown hair and wore glasses. At 5’6”, she was slender but with wide hips and a soft smile that were unforgettable to young Martin. They were married two years later, just before her twentieth birthday. Martin was an educated man who held a business degree from the University of Kansas, and the couple moved around quite a bit in the early years of marriage—from Oregon to Maine. Ultimately, they settled in Ohio, near Columbus where Martin took a managerial position at a local bank and Evelyn got a job at a coffee shop a few days week, despite the fact that Martin had insisted she didn’t have to work at all. But Evelyn had been raised to work hard, and she enjoyed earning her own money to contribute to family finances. She was happy with her life in all things except for one. Though they had been trying, she had been unable to conceive a child.
This began to weigh on her, slowly at first, but more dramatically as age passed. Eventually, her seeming infertility began to take a toll on the marriage. Martin stopped coming home directly after work, choosing instead to socialize with the many friends and acquaintances he had accumulated through the bank business. And before long, he had been invited to join gentleman’s clubs and gambling rings. He fell in love with the game of poker, and an addiction was born.
Martin slowly gambled the entire family savings away, and when he did show up at home, the smell of liquor would accompany his presence. Evelyn, though unsettled and battling the challenges of being a lonely wife who was unable to produce a child, was still loyal to Martin and believed that things would eventually work out.
But one winter night, two police officers showed up at her door, and she stood warily before her visitors with a woolen blanket draped over her frail shoulders.
“How can I help you?” She asked nervously.
“Evelyn Thomas?” The taller officer asked her.
“Yes, sir.” She drew the blanket more tightly across her frame.
“Is your husband Martin Thomas?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
The officers looked at each other and then cast their gazes downward.
One of them spoke: “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m very sorry. There has been an accident – a car accident. Your husband – well, he did not make it. He died in the crash.”
Evelyn’s heart fell immediately to the pit of her stomach. She felt sick and lost her balance, falling forward, allowing the policemen to catch her before hitting the ground. At that moment, she was beyond tears. The policemen took both of her arms and accompanied her to a sitting chair in the living room.
“Ma’am, your husband’s vehicle skidded on a patch of black ice and struck a telephone pole. There was an open liquor bottle found in the car, and we suspect he was operating under the influence.”
The information was too much to process all at once. Evelyn felt dizzy and then passed out. The blackness was good. And so was sleep. Sleeping was the easiest way for Evelyn to forget her pain and the hurt that burned her spirit.
It wasn’t until weeks later that she found out that Martin had gambled all their family savings away and there was no life insurance, save for a small policy that provided a few thousand dollars to all bank employees. But, because Martin had died in the manner that he had, the insurance company fought with her about payment. She ended up with a few hundred dollars, which was essentially used to pay her lawyer. There was nothing left. She had nothing left.
She could no longer afford the monthly mortgage to live in the house and received a notice from the bank to vacate the premises. Emotionally and financially broken, she had no choice but to take Martha up on her offer and stay with her sister’s family for a while in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
Evelyn was grateful for her sister’s charity, but she was perpetually sad and increasingly tired and nauseated. For the next eight weeks, she awakened every morning with a need to race to the bathroom to vomit. Her whole body felt tender and she had a heightened sense of smell. Her breasts were sore. Evelyn Thomas was pregnant.
With this realization, Evelyn had an urgent desire to be back home – home in Kansas. Though her mother had died two years prior, her father was still there. Pining for her simpler past, she thought of her childhood and of her horses. If she were going to have a baby, she wanted her child to know the magic that she had experienced in her own youth.
Four days later, Evelyn and her unborn baby were heading back to her family home near Topeka.
The property had changed; her aging father was now too old to keep up with things. The grass stood tall. It was the same house and property, but not quite how she had remembered it. Her mother and sisters were absent. The house was in shambles with clothes, old newspapers, magazines, food wrappers and empty whiskey bottles cluttered about. Her father had a beard and looked as if he had been without a shower for quite some time. He now smoked.
This sight saddened her as she dropped her bags in the middle of the living room floor. She had a lot of work on her hands with two years of neglect. She was momentarily overwhelmed, looking at her father sitting at the small, round kitchen table with an ashtray in front of him, smoke slowly filling the room. A glass of brown, room-temperature liquor was next to the ashtray. Curls of smoke lined his hunched figure.
“Dad, what has happened here?”
Arthur looked confused. He shrugged, no longer caring. This saddened Evelyn. Maybe it was good that she was back to help take care of him and the property.
“Let’s go, Dad. Up… up. We’re going to get you in a shower that’s long overdue. You stink. Let’s go.” Her old man was caught off guard by the request, but as soon as she grabbed his arm and started leading the way to the bathroom, he acquiesced.
With Arthur in the shower, Evelyn found a trash bag and immediately starting cleaning up. She tossed old take-out containers, random papers, and expired food items. Next, she washed the counters and dirty dishes. When she got to the windows, Arthur came stumbling out in a bathrobe.
“Where is your vacuum cleaner, Dad?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never used it. It could be in the closet by the kitchen there?”
Evelyn opened the door and moved cluttered boxes. Lo and behold, her mother’s old Electrolux materialized. She grabbed it and plugged it into the nearest wall. The sound and the smell abruptly brought her back to when she had been a little girl, cleaning to help her mother.
Her father watched and let her go to work. He was speaking, but all noise was blocked by the whirring of the machine. Evelyn saw this and turned off the vacuum.
“What was that, Dad?”
He fumbled about with his whiskey tongue and a half-cocked look and repeated, “You remind me of your mother.”
She smiled.
“I’m going to bed now; I’ll see you later.”
She worked all through the night until everything looked spotless, and she kept things in order until she gave birth eight months later. Ten months after Noah was born, Arthur Deshane took his last breath.
Evelyn picked up every extra shift she could at the coffee shop, looking to make ends meet. She had few expenses, and she had even been able to save a little money. But when her father died, her sisters arrived for the funeral, and there were disputes over distribution of his assets. Evelyn, never being one for confrontation, simply left.
Her father’s death hit her more acutely than it did her siblings. She had been with him every day for the past year-and-a half. She didn’t want to fight or argue about anything. It was decided that the siblings would split the estate in equal measures but that Evelyn could reside on the property until it was sold. The process took six months.
Part of her inheritance was the old Buick her father had owned and, surprisingly, had maintained. With new wheels, Evelyn packed the car one April day and drove east. She had a nice nest egg saved up but now hauled a one-year-old with her. Her son, Noah, filled the void in her life, and she had fallen in love with him from the get-go. She loved Noah more than anything and would do whatever it took to enhance his experience
in this world. She would make it.
Twelve years later, having since moved several times and having secured numerous jobs, Evelyn had landed in Mid-Town. Now, for the first time since the death of her husband, she felt a romantic stirring – something Earl Sherman had sparked.
Chapter 30
Tad and Vickie Newman awakened on a morning in mid-July with a hop in their steps, an optimism enhanced by the dark-roast coffee in their mugs. The sun was shining, and a cool breeze blew in from the north. They agreed it was a perfect day for a hike.
As soon as they had finished their morning elixir and read the newspaper, they showered and got dressed, each donning thinly-layered clothing, and climbed into the car. Their conversation during the ride was intimate and delightful, and their love for each other would have been visibly apparent to any onlooker; they held hands during the entire trip.
Parking at the city forest was jammed, and it wasn’t surprising on such a beautiful day. People had come out in droves to take advantage of fresh air and exercise. And hiking conditions here were outstanding. The city had long ago implemented a series of walking trails all around the forest and bog lands, even constructing a board walk of wood-composite materials that looped the area for several miles. The bog lands were a sanctuary for many birds and animals. Along the boardwalk were various plaques that described the animal life that could be viewed at each marker. This was also a popular place for freelance nature photographers to congregate and snap shots of these free-roaming creatures.
Tad and Vickie decided on a boardwalk loop to warm up. The wooded planks were soft on their feet and lent spring to their step. At certain points along the walk, miles and miles of free, open space revealed a wonder of natural wetland beauty. The plant life itself was exquisite. Picnic tables and outhouses were also available at strategic locations along trails, and all trails were connected. The whole trail system covered nearly ten miles.
They traversed the boardwalk quickly, their pace fast enough to pass slower families walking with little children and pushing big-wheeled strollers. They pushed on to the outskirts of the trail system where foot and bicycle traffic waned. They had not seen any passersby in more than twenty minutes.
It was Vickie who first heard the crackling on the forest floor in the distance, but she paid only mild attention to the noise. But when the sound grew audibly closer, Tad took her hand in a natural motion to slow the walk down. Fifty yards ahead, the crackling of sticks echoed through the trees of the quiet forest. A large thorn bush to the left of the trail shook as debris fell. And then the couple heard a deep grunting sound. They looked at each other apprehensively.
Finally, the grunting was paired with a visual, a large paw by an arm of thick, black fur, followed by the massive body of a bear that was drooling and foaming at the mouth. Tad and Vickie froze with fear, watching the frothing jowls of the apparently rabid creature. They could not know that the bear’s spirit had been consumed by a powerful demonic force that hungered for human blood and flesh. The couple backed up slowly, and Vickie began to cry quietly.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Tad directed her. He clapped his hands loudly in front of him, but this did nothing to deter the advance of the beast. The bear forged on, walking faster on all fours while the couple tried to back pedal with haste.
Finally, Tad and Vickie turned to run, but as they did, an even larger bear standing fourteen feet tall on two legs appeared just ten feet in front of them. Its eyes were pure black and slime and foam were discharging from its mouth. They screamed in terror, but ruckus merely served as a dinner bell for the beast. It rushed them and pounced, knocking them to the ground.
With Tad now writhing to escape, the bear attacked, using razor claws to rip him apart. Vickie recoiled in horror and also tried to flee, but it was too late for her as well. The other bear had now joined the slaughter, and human screams of agony lasted only seconds. When the weak struggle was over for the bear-masked Nephilim, the creatures ate of the human remains insatiably. They then acknowledged their efforts in a congratulatory roar, blood still dripping from their faces. It was clear that they would never lose hunger for human blood, and it would take a lot more than a bullet to put these dark creatures down.
Chapter 31
The other dark force escapees now inhabited the bodies of drug-addicted homeless men known as Marcus, Shawn and Henry. They had boundless energy sparked by a dark desire to corrupt and spread fear. Their once dirty drugged-out faces had morphed into something of evil despair. Their blackened eyes and crooked eyebrows now twisted grotesquely, and they walked through Mid-Town with menace, taking up all space on the sidewalks.
Lunging forth aggressively with hateful smiles and a snarling hiss, they forced those who were strolling toward them off into the street. This was their holiday, and the physical world was now their playground.
“Let’s kill someone,” Marcus shouted.
“Let’s rob a bank,” Shawn countered.
“Or, we could blow up a car!” Henry offered.
An elderly woman strolled down the street with a big purse hanging freely from her shoulder, paying no attention to the evil that moved toward her. Shawn sprung ahead and ripped the purse away, all three men snarling at her. The woman backed away in fear, too afraid to call for help, and this acquiescence bolstered the three demons, despite the fact that they had seen protective angels above her.
With stolen purse in hand, Shawn led the way down the block, leaving the others to follow. They ducked off into an alleyway and ravaged the bag, pulling out all the belongings and keeping only items of value. The rest they left splayed upon the trash stained pavement.
“Let’s steal a car and then light it on fire,” Henry was excited to continue the spree.
“Do you know even how to hot wire?” Shawn barked back.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t!”
“Yes. Let’s do it!” Marcus concurred.
They jacked the first car in sight by smashing out the window in broad daylight. It was an old Buick with rust and faded paint. A couple of pedestrians looked at them ready to take action until they glimpsed the faces of the criminal creatures. The three climbed into the car, and though it took Henry several minutes to spark the ignition, they pulled out into the street with smoking tires, cutting off approaching vehicles.
Horns blared, but Shawn merely rolled down the window and stuck half of his body outside, screaming obscenities until they backed off. The wild men pushed on through the street in the old ghetto cruiser, swerving and cutting off other cars driving up and down street. They rolled forward until seeing a gas station. Marcus shouted out from the back seat.
“Fire, fire. Let’s light it on fire!”
The car pulled into the parking lot next to a gas pump. Not too far away, a man stood alone enjoying a smoke. One of the twisted-faced assailants spied him sliding a red lighter back into his worn jeans pocket. There wouldn’t be much of a shakedown involved; it was only a matter of asking the smoking man for a light.
The guy was distracted when asked, his nose buried in his smart phone, and he thoughtlessly pulled the lighter out of his pocket and handed it over. As he looked up to see who was on the receiving end, he was startled by the sour face that stared back.
“Thank you, kindly,” Shawn purred, darkly.
The man was both visibly caught off guard and terrified.
“You know, smoking kills.” Shawn added and turned away, joining his party with an open flame. Henry was soaking the interior seats with gasoline. Marcus was watching intently, smiling from ear to ear, hands clenched in front of him. Henry pulled the flowing gasoline nozzles out and sprayed down the exterior of the car. A few stunned passersby stopped and watched the twisted scene with incredulity.
Shawn touched the flame to the gas soaked hood of the old Buick, and instantly, metal and cloth were engulfed in flames. Proud of the pyrotechnic display, the three backed away to watch. It wasn’t long before the store manager cam
e out screaming, “What the hell are you doing?” His phone in hand, he dialed 911.
The three waited a few more minutes before howling off in laughter, leaping like powerful deer into the distance. They heard sirens approaching the scene and then a distinctive explosion at the sight. Once the car blew up, dousing the fire would be difficult, and it was only a matter of time before the flames would be sucked down into the holding tanks, blowing the whole lot sky high.
As the three ran out into the distance, a larger explosion lit the air. The trees that now surrounded them muffled the sound while the leaves blocked the light in the fading afternoon sun. The evil trio stopped moving and found a comfortable resting point a few hundred yards into the edge of town tree line.
“That was fun,” Marcus said.
“Yes, but that was just the beginning,” Shawn said, idly dragging a stick through the dirt.
The enthusiasm of the group was palpable. “We are going to bring this town to hell!” Henry howled, and all three began laughing uncontrollably.
“Or bring hell to this town!” Shawn added.
It would take something stronger than a man with a gun to stop them.
Chapter 32
The news of a recent crime wave in Mid-Town traveled quickly through the airwaves and into Noah’s young ears. He heard about it at breakfast the following morning while eating his bowl of morning cornflakes and contemplating a boring day ahead. Having had a taste of adventure with the twins, he was now annoyed at the prospect of the mundane.
