The Evil Within

by William King

  The time seemed to be flying by when we heard, now boarding flight six-six-six to England, being called over the intercom. Elizabeth and I stood motionless for a brief moment before awkwardly looking at one another with a weird expression on our faces, speaking out at the same time, “flight 666”, as we walked over to give our tickets to the flight attendant to board the plane.

  We made our way down the boarding ramp, and just before we stepped onto the plane, I pointed down at the gap that was between the plane and boarding ramp and said, “Watch your step Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth looked down and said, “Oh please, it will take more than that to scare me.” I laughed and we walked onto the plane, where the stewardess pointed us in the direction to our seats that were located in first-class. Even our seat numbers were odd. It was not a coincidence that our seat numbers were, numbers thirty-two and thirty-three. I could not help but think that this had all been planned out, but then I thought, no shit, as it was already foretold to me as my destiny.

  Before we got to our seats, Elizabeth mentioned that she wanted the seat by the window, so I obliged her by letting her take my seat, as I did not care to be next to the window. The both of us sat back and relaxed before takeoff, not saying too much to one another, as I had always been nervous about flying. Bear in mind, the only part I liked about flying was the take off.

  For some unfortunate reason, I always thought about all the airplane crashes that have occurred, and it was just a matter of time before one of those mishaps was going to happen to me at an altitude of30,000 feet, but that is just my paranoia getting the better of me.

  Within no time, at all we were taxiing for the runway, getting ready for takeoff. To me this was the only part about flying that I liked, and the most exciting for me, but was always over the quickest.

  2

  TRIP TO ENGLAND

  W

  e were finally on our way to England, and the first thing that came to mind was how much I really hated to fly. It was boring, nothing to do except sleep, play games or watch movies for hours and hours. Nonetheless, I was also hoping that the answers that we were looking for were waiting for us in England. Elizabeth and I sat quietly and downed glass after glass of red wine. I did not know if it was just me at the time, but with the look on Elizabeth’s face, it seemed as if we both disliked flying. However, I knew that she had a lot on her mind. I knew that the thoughts that she had of what happened back at the Blackwood Manor weighed heavily on her mind. Nonetheless, I can surly say that we were more relaxed now than back at the Blackwood Manor, sitting here on this airplane. Although it could just be the wine talking, since we have had so many glasses of it, and we were not even half way to England.

  I could not stand the unbearable silence that had somehow engulfed the two of us any longer, so I broke it by asking, “Elizabeth what family member’s do you have left in England?”

  “Actually, I have no blood relation left at all. There is my widowed aunt Cassandra who was once married to my father’s brother until his untimely death, and that is all. Cassandra Vablatsky is her name, and after my uncle Laurence died, my aunt went back to using her maiden name. I must tell you Mason, she will not be of any help to us at all because she is senile. Please do not think of me as unkind, but it is the truth, and a known fact to everyone who knows her. My humble servants in England are the closest thing to family that I have left in this world.”

  “Elizabeth, can you tell me anything about your aunt Casandra, anything at all would help? How old is she?”

  “I am afraid there is not much that can be said about my aunt Cassandra. I know that she is getting up there in age. If I am not mistaking, and I might be, I believe that she is ninety-three years old, and she has lived in the same dilapidated shack at the edge of Devil’s Elbow most of her life. That is except for the sixteen years she and my uncle Laurence had spent on the Devil’s Island, which is located somewhere in the Pacific.

  “Actually, their extended stay on Devil’s Island was not completely by choice. Something terrible had gone wrong with their single engine plane and they crashed on the island, and from what I have been told, they were the only two that survived the plane crash. The funny thing was is that the natives on the island thought of them as Gods because they had fallen from the sky. Laurence and Cassandra lived there on Devils Island for sixteen years. I do not recall anyone ever saying exactly how my aunt Cassandra had made it off Devil’s Island after my Uncle Laurence’s death, but somehow she did, and made it back to England.

  “When my aunt Cassandra did return to England my father told me that she had completely gone insane, he called her a 5150, whatever that means. I always liked her myself, and even felt a little sorry for her because my own father had never visited her, and she grew to be a rather lonely old woman. I remember back when I was a small child that I would sometimes sneak off to see her, unbeknownst to my father. Mason, if I do say so myself, and being a small child at the time, I thought that she was very interesting, and often a very funny lady to boot. It was unfortunate that I always had to promise her that I would never tell my father that I had gone to see her. She never explained why, and I never asked.

  “It all seems rather odd now, looking back. Why my own father had always tried to gently steer me away from my aunt without really defying me, or ordering me to stay away from her. I will have to remember to ask her about that when I see her again, which I hope is soon.”

  “Elizabeth, it seems to me that your aunt Cassandra is an interesting person, interesting indeed. Although I wonder if she really is, what your father has portrayed her out to be. There is one thing that I would have to admit, and that is after being stranded on a deserted island out in the Pacific Ocean for sixteen years, that is called the Devil’s Island, and the only inhabitants were a group of islanders that have never had any contact with the outside world, would be the perfect setting for the supernatural forces that we had experienced back at the Blackwood Manor, wouldn’t you think.

  “Elizabeth, do you understand where I am going with this? I hope you know what I mean. Natives, voodoo, shrunken heads, sacrificial gatherings? You can count on me looking deeply into your aunt Cassandra’s past thoroughly. What about your mother Elizabeth, how did she feel about your aunt Cassandra?”

  “I always thought that my mother Gwendolyn had felt the exact same way as I did about her. I knew that she cared for Cassandra very much, and I believe that she had felt sorry for her, and did not think that she had deserved the cold shoulder that my father had given her throughout the years. However, still to this day, I do not know the reason for all this secrecy. Nonetheless, back in those days a woman rarely questioned her husband’s authority. My mother was a timid woman, and I do not ever remember a time when she had ever disobeyed my father’s wishes, even if she had a different opinion. Not that my father was abusive to her in anyway.

  “As a child, my father struck me as being the kind of man whose wishes were not to be taken lightly. I do not mean to paint that black of a picture of him, but that is just the way he was. I knew that he loved us both, and I believe that he would have done anything in his power to protect us, but yet he was a very stern and positive man at the same time.”

  From what Elizabeth had told me, her father was not that strange at all, just a stern man that seemed to be covering something up, something very important. I had to dig a lot deeper to find out why Elizabeth’s father wanted to keep her and her mother away from her aunt Cassandra. In fact, what little information Elizabeth had just told me about her aunt made her seem like she was not so crazy at all.

  I must have enjoyed the conversation with Elizabeth as the time onboard the airplane to England passed quicker than I expected. As we heard a ding and looked up at the fasten seat belt sign, and then heard the pilot say that we would be landing within thirty minutes over the intercom. It had been a little more than eight hours since we had boarded the plane, but felt like it had only been a couple.

  It was weird.
Once our conversation stopped, we both sat there in our seats peacefully for the remainder of the flight with our eyes closed and our heads rested back against the seat. I guess the conversation that we were having took a lot out of us. Although my eyes were closed, and it looked as if I was peacefully sleeping, my mind still worked overtime, but I was no closer to the truth than when I first arrived at the Blackwood Manor. It was so damn irritating to know that I tried so hard and still got nowhere closer to the truth than before. I could be wrong, but I had the strangest feeling that Elizabeth’s aunt would be able to shed some light on the hellish supernatural occurrences that had went on back at the Blackwood Manor.

  During the landing, our eyes seemed to be glued wide open, even though we had so much red wine to drink, and had laid back and closed our eyes right before we were planned to land at the airport. Nonetheless, I could not wait to get off this plane, and knew that it would not be too much longer now, as the tires chirped when the plane touched down on the runway of the Castle Mills International Airport.

  A sign of relief came over the both of us as we were now on land once again. It did not take very long for the plane to taxi over to the docking port of the airport, and as the flight attendant opened up the door to let us depart, a flood of people rushed towards the exit door of the plane, as if it had been on fire and they feared for their lives. Therefore, Elizabeth and I waited patiently in our seats for a bit, just long enough for the crowd of people to have departed the plane. We both figured that we had already been on this plane for eight hours or so already, so what would a few more minutes hurt.

  We departed the plane after the crowd was gone and headed through the airport to pick up our belongings at the baggage handling conveyor belt, and to our surprise, our luggage was just coming around the corner as we walked up. Elizabeth and I were both enthusiastic to see that all of our bags were accounted for, and had not been lost. We quickly grabbed our bags and set off towards the pick-up and drop-off section in front of the airport. It was great. We did not have to wait a minute once we reached the pick-up section of the airport, as there were a handful of taxis to choose from already lined up waiting for a fare. In fact, there were drivers sitting in their vehicles, and taxi drivers leaning against them, just waiting patiently to pick someone up.

  I held up my hand as we walked up to one of the taxi drivers and the driver came right over and said, “Hi there, where are you two headed? Let me help you with your luggage.”

  I set down my luggage, shook his hand, and replied, “We are headed to a town called Dripping Springs, and you can help her with her bags.”

  The cab driver grabbed Elizabeth’s luggage, I grabbed mine, and we followed him over to his cab. Elizabeth got in the back seat while the cab driver and I loaded the luggage into the trunk. After we got into the car, the cab driver asked, “Where are you two headed today?”

  I looked back at Elizabeth with a concerned look on my face and said, “I thought I already told you where we were headed before we got into the vehicle?”

  The man looked at me with a weird look on his face without saying a word when Elizabeth said, “We are headed to the small town of Dripping Springs.”

  The cab driver grinned and said, “That is what I had thought, but I wanted to make sure before I blurted out the name again, as it is an unusual name for a town. Now that we have got that awkward moment out of the way, Dripping Springs it is.”

  The cab driver took off, weaved in and of the slow moving traffic through the terminal and finally we made it to the main highway. I was glad that I was not driving through all this mess, good grief the traffic was heavily congested until we made it clear of the airport. From then on the traffic thinned even more as we made our way out into the rural parts. On the way to our new destination, Elizabeth was quieter than she had been in the last thirty minutes of the airplane ride that is until the landing. I wonder if it had to do with the numerous glasses of red wine that we drank on the plane. Maybe the effects of the wine were wearing off. Therefore, to find out what was bothering her I asked, “What is the matter Elizabeth, are old memories coming back to you?”

  “No, not really, this is just the first time that I have been back to England since my parent’s deaths, and now their thoughts are running through my head.”

  “Memories are a good thing, as long as they are good memories, and from what you have told me about your parents, they should be. Although, I am sorry that you have to come back under such grueling circumstances. You know the things that we had both witnessed back at the Blackwood Manor.”

  Elizabeth changed the subject and said, “I have been also thinking about my aunt Cassandra, and what you had said about all the weird things that might have happened to her while she was supposedly stranded on the island for sixteen years, you know, the shrunken heads, voodoo, natives, and human sacrifices.”

  Right then the taxi driver turned and looked at me with a confused look on his face and said, “What are you two talking about? What is this about shrunken heads, voodoo, and human sacrifices?”

  I replied, “It was just a movie that we are helping to produce on an island that is all.”

  The taxi driver grinned and said, “Ok, if you say so.”

  Then Elizabeth finished what she had started to say when our most lively conversation had been interrupted by the taxi driver and said, “I simply cannot believe that my Aunt Cassandra would ever do anything to bring harm to anyone, especially to myself, or my mother.”

  “Elizabeth, just because I mentioned all those things does not mean that they had actually occurred, it does not mean that I am one-hundred percent right about the accusations. I am sure that she is really a sweet and lovely old lady.”

  Nonetheless, I still could not wait to speak with her. Just at that moment the cab driver said “This is it folks, the small rural town of Dripping Springs,” and giggled.

  Elizabeth replied, “You can drop us off in front of the restaurant up ahead on the right called Gnaw Bone, it is the town’s only restaurant.”

  “No problem” said the cab driver.

  Then I asked, “Elizabeth, why can’t the cab driver take us directly to the house?”

  She turned and gave me an awkward look and said, “There is only way to get the house, and that is a dirt road many times worse than the one you drove down getting to the Blackwood Manor. In this rainy place we will need a four-wheel drive vehicle to get us there.”

  I asked, “And where do you plan on getting this four-wheel drive vehicle?”

  Elizabeth replied with a smirk on her face, “You just leave that up to me, I have it covered.”

  We pulled up in front of the restaurant, got out of the cab, and grabbed our luggage while a light mist of rain started falling. We gave our fell wells to the taxi driver and then I followed Elizabeth inside the restaurant to get out of the mist that was falling. I sat down at the only available table in the corner of the restaurant while Elizabeth went to find someone that she knew. I waited, and in no time, I saw her walking towards me with an old man following right behind her.

  As soon as she approached me at the table she said, “Bartemius, I would like you to meet Mason Williams, Mason, I would like you to meet Bartemius.”

  I stood up and reached out to shack his hand, as I replied, “Glad to meet you Bartemius.”

  As we shook each other’s hands,he chuckled and said, “I am pleased to meet you as well Mason Williams, and I am very pleased that young Elizabeth here is finally finding out that there are more important things in life than old dilapidated houses to hold her interests.”

  Elizabeth’s facial expression said it all, without her saying a word. It seemed as if his last remark had just infuriated her as she said with a stern voice, “Alright Bartemius, I think it is time to get going, shall we!”

  Bartemius responded by pointing towards the back of the restaurant with a big smile across his face and said, “My jeep is parked out back, let’s get to it then.”

  Eliz
abeth and I grabbed our belongings and headed towards the back of the restaurant, through the door and out into the alley located behind the old restaurant where Bartemius’s four-wheel drive jeep was parked. Bartemius opened up the doors to the small trailer that was hooked up to the jeep and I made quick work out of throwing our luggage inside. Bartemius closed the doors and latched them up while I climbed into the passenger side seat of the jeep. Shortly after closing the door I heard Elizabeth laugh and say, “Damn, you sure did get drenched Mason.”

  I looked at her in the rear view mirror and said, “It did not seem as if I was in the down poor long enough to get drenched.” However, I soon realized it once I turned to look at Elizabeth in the back seat of the Jeep.

  A minute later Bartemius climbed in, closed the door, and said, “We are off.” Bartemius was talkative from the moment he closed the door to the jeep and started the engine. Right from the get go I would say. As we made our way to the Manor, the three of us seemed as if we were getting along just fine. In fact, the three of us had not once stopped talking, that is except to give the other person a chance to say what was on his or her mind of course. The chatting continued for some time before it suddenly came to a screeching halt, as it seemed as if Bartemius had lost his jolly old spirit somewhere along the way. From that moment on, the trip to the Manor seemed as if it would never come to an end. It was dead silent, and an uncomfortable feeling came over me. The only thing that you could hear was the sound coming off the big knobby, off-road mud tires that were on the jeep. That is until, even the off-road tires seemed to have stopped making their humming sound on the asphalt as we drove down the road.