The House on Mayberry Road

by Troy McCombs

  "Rollings!!"

  In one last effort at settling the score, D'kourikai opened his mouth to full capacity and breathed fire at him. The flickering flames came forth fast. John had no time to duck or jump out of the way. He thought he was done for, and closed his eyes.

  The heat was intense, but there was no contact. No unbearable pain or smell of burnt flesh. Still, his face puddled with sweat, and he reopened his eyes to see the last thing—and person—he expected to.

  Sarah Pouster. She was standing before him, her back to him, and her front blocking the onslaught of dragon breath. The flames did not affect her spirit, did not break through her glowing psyche. They were simply nullified by it.

  John gazed over her head to watch D'kourikai try to ward off the spirits he could not defend himself against. They crowded around him, growing in number, not holding back, their expressions exhibiting supreme justice. Wounds continued to form. He continued to screech. The fireball, still protruding from his mouth, soon went in reverse, back toward his damaged body. As soon as it got near his face, it engulfed him. Before he could retreat in any way, it was too late. He exploded from the inside out. Sludge and slime flew everywhere: on the walls, rafters, windows, floor, John. The battle was over. D'kourikai was dead.

  Things calmed down at once. Many of the spirits turned to orbs and flew out through window, where they floated up into the sky, free at last. However, five others stayed behind, some John knew, some he knew of.

  Tamera, Mary, Sarah, and the Prestillions. They stood side by side, all smiling, all proud of John.

  "You saved our souls." Mr. Prestillion's spirit glowed brightly. For the first time in a century, he was happy again. Unchained. “You gave your life for us. We returned the favor, young man. I thank you!"

  "Yes." His wife, a beautiful woman with long, fiery red hair, floated forward. Her hair floated with her. "Because of your divine choices, God has allowed us to restore a life just for you."

  Sandra, their little daughter, a girl with pigtails, smiled at him with extreme generosity. "Yes, Mister, thank you!"

  "You're welcome."

  "We're sorry," Mr. Prestillion said, "but we can't stay. We must go now. Write about this experience, John. Share all your experiences with the world. God be with you."

  The Prestillion Family's apparitions faded, then disappeared, gone into another realm, a better realm. A dimension of eternal serenity.

  Mary, Charlie's victim, floated forward and extended a transparent hand to her personal rescuer. John reached out and tried to grab it. There was no physical contact, but the hairs on his arm stood up.

  "This is just the beginning, Mr. Rollings."

  "Please, call me John."

  She smiled. Her smile literally brightened the room. "You've done today what many people can't do their whole lives."

  "What did I do exactly, Mary?"

  "You brought a little bit of heaven down to earth. You destroyed a being stronger than something demonic. It was all you. We were only able to help after you'd done the hard part. If not for you, I, and several others, would still be trapped in darkness. I will see you later, my friend."

  Like that, she was gone, too.

  This time, Tamera came forward, her golden hair flowing. As she approached, tears filled John's eyes. His heart felt like it was on fire, but in a good way.

  "John, my one and only son. You don't need my help any longer. From here on out you got the rest of your life figured out. You may not know it right now, but you do."

  "I won't be able to see you again, will I, mom?"

  She shook her head. "Not like you have been, but I will watch out for you from where I am. I won't ever leave you in spirit. Just because you don't see me with your eyes doesn't mean you can't see me. I will always be inside your heart. Always. I love you, Rock'a'by' Rollings."

  He wanted to hug her so badly but couldn't. It would have hurt him too much just to try. She disappeared before he could have, anyway.

  "Good-bye, mom..."

  Little Sarah Pouster approached him, the last remaining specter. She looked the way he remembered when she was alive, before she'd hung herself. There was no remorse anywhere on her lucid face, no resentment, no bitterness. She actually looked very happy, despite what he thought he'd done to her.

  "I'm okay, John. What I did was my choice, not yours. You made no mistake with me. You did not fail me. You have to let go of your guilt, or else you won't move on. You know that!"

  "I do!" He wiped away some tears.

  "Your friend Ben even tried to show you that, and still, you didn't really hear him. Knowing something and doing something are two different things. Today you did something that was more difficult than letting your remorse go. Why can't you do it?"

  "Because of what I said to you, Sarah. I said—"

  "John, if you can't let me go, I can't move on, either. We're all connected, even in death. So how about it? How about today you open your hands instead of clinching them together? I believe in you. You can do anything you want. Don't apologize to me, apologize to yourself. Let go. You freed hundreds of souls today, and now you can't save one, yours."

  John wept quietly.

  "You're close. Dig deep and say it. I forgive myself. I did nothing wrong to Sarah Pouster."

  "I—I can't, Sarah."

  "You can. You're just afraid. Just repeat these words, okay? I forgive me." There was no impatience in her voice. She could have waited forever for this good man.

  "I—I forgive me."

  "It was not my fault that Sarah died."

  John cried harder.

  Suddenly, the floor beneath him shook. The walls shuddered. The window before him shattered, startling him.

  "It's—not my fault—"

  "You're halfway there."

  He searched himself for the words, for the lost region of self-liberation. It was there, confined and lonely all by itself, buried deep under loads of self-pity and ego. Inaccessible.

  Using all his strength, he fought through himself to uncover it, to reveal it.

  He couldn't.

  "John, letting go is letting go, not forcing something away."

  That's when his heart opened and he spoke: "It isn't my fault you died. It's not my fault. I did all I could and that's it. I forgive myself for blaming myself. I'm a good person and I love who I've become."

  She smiled. The restraint on Rollings' heart came unfastened. He was now free from himself. He could finally move on.

  "Now I can go, too." Sarah began to dissolve away... "Leave this house before it collapses. The portal is closing." She disappeared.

  Particles of dust trickled down onto John's head. One of the overhead rafters cracked and came crashing down. The walls rumbled noisily. Part of the ceiling caved in. He could see the sky.

  Ducking his head, John ran to the opening in the floor and began to climb down the hazardous-looking ladder. The split, conjoined two-by-fours constructing it rattled from side to side. His feet shifted hastily as he descended. Soon, the entire house shook violently, crumbling, smashing, and trembling like it was set above an active fault line. He lost his grip and was thrown down to the hallway below. Dazed but coherent, he got back up and went to the staircase. Using the banister for support, he helped himself down the racketing steps. The wall on his right cracked in a spider vein-type pattern. The brown-painted surface peeled upward. The unsettled dust became like clouds of poisonous smoke.

  All John could think of was the front door at the bottom. It was no longer blocked but wide open. He could smell the fresh air, could see a strong breeze moving blades of grass. His legs moved faster and faster, going down from one step at a time, to two, to three. He almost tripped over himself twice, but when a loud boom rang out and the entire attic joined the upstairs hallway in a jumble of broken lumber and plaster, John was outside. Jennifer was standing by a tree several feet away, watching the house collapse. She did not see him come out, unscathed, running toward her.

  "J
en! Jennifer!"

  She broke her gaze and looked at him, astonished. No, it can't be!

  "John? Is it really you?"

  He wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her injured one around him and they held onto each other for several seconds. Neither believed they'd see each other again, like this. John could hear her heart throb against his, her warm body press against his cool skin. Nothing could be better.

  Smash! Slam!

  They looked back up at the disintegrating building. The roof had fallen in on itself, the windows all exploded simultaneously, and the brick exterior cracked in a thousand different places. It was imploding, turning in on itself, pulling toward the pyramid in the basement. A small, whirling black circle hovered motionlessly in the air, about where the attic once had been. The portal.

  "Watch it die.” John had never felt more liberated.

  "It's like a huge burden coming to an end. I'm glad to see it waste away."

  "Me too. I will never be back here again."

  Jennifer looked into his eyes. "D'kourikai was right about one thing. I have fallen for you. I've loved you since you were young. There was something about you I felt extremely drawn to. I knew I had to meet you when I first heard about you."

  "What about your husband?"

  "I'm not married, John. It's all an act to keep guys at bay. I was afraid of getting hurt. I wear the band to keep them away. I've been waiting for someone like you, someone more like me." She squeezed him.

  Suddenly, he looked down at his burnt hand and remembered the first vision he had ever picked up from her...

  A blue-flannel-clad man with a BURNED hand slipping an engagement ring onto her finger.

  I'm the one who's to marry to her?

  The 'blue flannel’ conception was obviously part of a faulty psychic pick-up. It happened quite often amongst all psychics. Not everything matched perfectly.

  "Y'know, I think we can make this work."

  "You're interested in me?" She looked into his dark eyes.

  "Of course I am."

  The awful house of innumerable evils, a house that was never meant to exist, finished sinking into the basement. The noisy collision of concrete and wood, behind which bad memories and great opposition lingered for over a hundred years, soon died out. Broken rubble now cluttered the clearing. John and Jennifer felt the sudden lack of deterrent energy and knew that it was over.

  John squeezed her shoulder. "Let's go.”

  They turned and walked away, a new couple with a new outlook on life.

  Thank you, Sarah. You showed me how to let go.

  Before they left the clearing, there was a sound...a faint, rustling sound coming from the rubble. It made John stop.

  "No. Let's go." Jennifer tried to keep walking away, but he looked back anyway. Two broken, fallen bricks were moving by themselves, as if somebody was trying to escape from underneath all the wasted debris.

  "John! Come on."

  "Wait. I wanna see what is—Lucky?!"

  He suddenly remembered what Mrs. Prestillion had told him. "Because of your divine choices, God has allowed us to restore a life just for you."

  The Doberman managed to pull himself out of the debris, dirty and scruffy but completely unharmed. Barking and excited, he ran toward his master, who knelt down, waiting for him with open arms.

  "I can't believe it! You're okay!"

  Lucky jumped on him, took him to the ground, and smothered his face with kisses. John burst out laughing. Jennifer stood there, smiling, spellbound. She could not believe a life had just been brought back from the dead, but it was so.

  Anything's possible, I guess.

  The trio left minutes later, before the silver pyramid and black hole collided. They both disappeared into thin air, along with every bit of rubble. The only thing that was left behind was a patch of dirt with a small, healthy oak tree growing where the house once stood. The warmth of the sun washed away every last remaining trace of otherworldly corruption.

  ***

  John ended up writing a best-selling book about his real-life experiences in the Mayberry House. It was eventually turned into a blockbuster motion picture, also. Paramount even offered him a whopping one-point-five-million dollars for the rights. His hard work had finally paid off.

  Not long afterward, he and Jennifer tied the knot, moved into a mansion on the east coast, had two kids—Sam and Sarah—and decided to never use their psychic abilities to gain, but to simply live their lives as normally as everyone else.

  My name is Troy. My first, truest, and ultimate love is self-expression. I've been writing since the third grade, when our teacher made us write a story for class. That did it for me. I was hooked. I'm 30 now; I was 9 then. I've taken long breaks over the years, but I've never completely stopped, not even during my more depressed and doubtful times. Horror, science fiction, and fantasy are my fortes, though I have branched out: screenplays, poetry, philosophies, short stories, coming-of-age dramas, action, suspense...you name it, I wrote it. One of the biggest contributors, I believe, to why I enjoy it so much, is because since childhood, I've had a crippling social anxiety disorder. When I'm around crowds or people I don't know, I freeze up, become very quiet. My heart pounds against my chest. I used to even black out and have panic attacks (very unpleasant experience, in case you never had one before). Don't know why I was always shy and awkward. Kids in school made it even worse. So, since I couldn't express myself verbally, I guess I used writing as a second form of communication. Strangely enough, I feel closer to God (or some divine force) whenever I have that spark of creativity. I feel like I'm closer to something larger than myself. It's actually like taking medicine.

  So I guess this is where I say I start writing blogs to expose myself further out into the world. I don't care if I'm rich, or famous, or popular, or whatever. I just want my stories to reach people. To show people a side of myself I never could before, especially as a kid when I needed to most. I want people to read something of mine and understand where I'm coming from, to take people on a journey into a brave new world they've never seen before. I want to share a part of my soul with humanity.

  If you're interested in checking out any of my work, it's all available on Amazon.com. Just type my name in the spacebar there and my ebooks will come up.

  Visit his website at http://ehorror.webs.com/