A SECOND
SIGHT
Chapter 11
THE STEBBINS MONSTER
Location: BOAT’S APARTMENT
Stebbins’ voice is no ordinary whisper.
His voice has changed. It has become a thick, full-throated kind of voice which belongs to dreadful sewers and mouldy caves!
This is not Stebbins’ voice at all, and as Boat watches, oddly fascinated, Stebbins’ eyes change to a terrible green again, and the mark blazes furiously on his forehead in red blood.
His li-ps twist into an ugly snarl as his face changes from that of a human into that of a hideous beast.
His li-ps are drawn back from hu-ge teeth, his nostrils flaring, and a dreadful guttural sound comes from his throat.
Somehow, Boat doesn’t feel so much fear now, only a terrible sense of doom, aware that death is near, and wishing desperately for it.
Stebbins’ grabbed two of the railings, and then he for-ces them apart, causing the metal to whimper with outrage.
Boat’s terrified eyes bulge with acute shock. These are not cheap aluminium railings. These are tempered cast iron, designed to repel for-ce and pressure, and can give a lot of anxieties to even a power sawing machine.
They cannot bend so easily, and no hands are supposed to be able to rip them apart like that!
And Stebbins has just pushed them apart, as if they are made with clay.
Yaw Boat watches – strangely calm – as the green-eyed, slobbering, fury-filled Stebbins steps throu-ghthe hu-ge space he has created in the railings, and comes towards him, gr-unting furiously in that amplified sewer-voice.
When he looks down, however, Boat sees that Stebbins’ face is changing rapidly into flesh version of the green demon he has seen!
It is no longer Stebbins!
The green demon inside him is now taking shape, emerging!
Boat’s mind finally snaps from the unfair punishment it is being subjected to.
He screams loudly!
Somehow his feet bundled up un-der him and pushes upward. He makes a mad dash for the open windows, wishing to get as far away as possible from the evil incarnate.
The Stebbins-beast thing cuts him off cleanly, almost gracefully, and then it hammers a hu-ge fist with brute for-ce into Boat’s ribs, cutting off his breathing and driving all the strength out of him.
A back-handed slap follows, catching Boat flush against the side of the face, and knocking him off his feet.
Boat falls into a foul liquid which his sick br@in identifies as his own vomit and urine, and he lies there, gasping for breath, and staring up at the Stebbins-beasts with his eyes bulging out of their sockets, literally!
Blood oozes out of Boat’s nose and split li-ps.
The monster towers over him, face still rapidly changing so that Boat can ba-rely recognize the original Stebbins’ facial features.
The look on that face is pure evil now. The beast raises his foot slowly, deliberately, ready to bring it crashing down into Boat’s face.
With that abnormal strength, Boat has no doubt that it will disintegrate his skull to pulp.
As Boat watches in horrified stupor, waiting for death, something amazing happens.
The foot of the beast is still raised over Boat’s face, and Boat can see past that dirty foot – which, to his horror, has foot rot – to that hideous face, and suddenly, the snarl of the evil being above him changes to a confused whimper.
The monster’s ne-ck turns to one side, and it bends lower to get a better look at Boat’s face.
Suddenly its rage disappears, and Boat sees apprehension written across that evil face, there is a sudden look of fear in its eyes.
The monster lowers its foot gently, taking great care to put it far away from Boat’s face.
It gives another whimper of fear, and then rapidly the demon recedes.
The green eyes vanish, the evil face vanishes, the mark on its forehead disappears, and soon it is only the thin and tall figure of Stebbins standing there in mild confusion.
That is when Mary’s sharp, shocked voice cuts throu-ghthe dawn air.
MARY
(screaming)
Mr. Stebbins!
She comes out throu-ghthe French Windows.
She is dra-ped in a long cloth, and her face looks shocked as she runs to Boat’s side.
She pushes Stebbins out of the way and looks down at Boat, her face terrified.
MARY
(horrified)
My good gracious, Yaw! What did you to do him, Mr. Stebbins? Why are you here? How did you get in here, Mr. Stebbins?
She is speaking to Stebbins, but as she speaks her eyes go to the railings separating the balconies, and for the very first time she sees the twisted and abused railings, and her mouth fell open in a silent “O”.
She looks from Stebbins to the railings and back with horror written all over her face, and when Stebbins begins to shamble away, she does a sensible double take and steps aside for him. Boat and Mary watch him go, and when he goes throu-ghthe railings to his balcony and into his room they finally look at each other.
MARY
(tremulously)
What’s going on here, Yaw, my love?
BOAT
(trembling, whispering)
Believe me, Mary, you don’t want to know. Please help me up.
Mary takes Boat’s arm and supports him into the bathroom where she cleans him of vomit, blood and urine.
Her eyes are dazed and full of questions all the time, but simply refuses to talk to her about the horrors she had evidently witnessed, the only reason being that Boat has refused to think about what had happened.
But not for long.
Not ever for long, because eventually thoughts of Anderson come flooding back into Boat’s head.
So, everything Anderson had said has come true.
Samson and Boat have been so very wrong.
Boat’s life has changed in the blink of an eye, and he knows de-ep down that nothing is ever going to be the same again.
He has always prided himself in being strong and fearless. un-der different circu-mstances he could have whipped Stebbins with one hand tied behind his back, but this thing has reduced him to a nervous wreck.
It has taken his mind and twisted it into an insane spool, bringing to the fore all man’s dreaded fears, and has exp-osed his vulnerability and terror so completely that even thinking about it brings helpless tears to his eyes.
In all the whirlwind of unexpected horror and its unpredictable future, there is one thing Boat is absolutely certain of: he just can’t handle it!
The hell he has witnessed is not meant for human eyes, and no mind is supposed to grapple with something as evil as that.
Boat is not a coward, but when he remembers that horrible green face, he quails inside. He simply cannot survive sights like that. It will make him insane. He nee-ds none of it. He isn’t cut out to see spirits, and certainly he doesn’t want to be an Unblind or whatever the hell that is!
He can’t fight demons and principalities and fiendish ghouls!
…My heart bleeds for you for the terrible times ahead of you…
Anderson!
Always Anderson!
What he had seen has freaked him out terribly, and he isn’t ready to take on such evil, and nothing is ever going to convince him to do battle with stuff like that.
As Mary helps him into bed, his mind is made up. He resolves that as soon as it is day, he will go and see the pastor Anderson has mentioned in his letter.
He will for-ce that pastor to take him to Anderson … and then Boat will beat the crap out of that damn Anderson and demand that he lifts whatever evil spell he has cast on him.
Boat isn’t some latter day Moses who was going to lead God’s people out of captivity. Damn it, Moses had had a magical staff, or something silly!
How is Boat going to be able to face such inhuman terror? He had felt his mind ready to snap when that thing came throu-ghthe railings, and he had felt the blood building up in his head like a choked dam, building up behind his eyes, ears, nostrils and throat.
A second longer of that horror and all his veins would have burst, and blood would have spewed out of every orifice in his face, and out of every pore! His br@in would have exploded as if it had been packed full of gelignite, and he would have died a really messy kind of death.
He rests in Mary’s arms and tries to sleep … but sleep eludes him because he is scared of shutting his eyes, scared that if he opens his eyes that thing will come back.
He wonders if he is ever going to have peace again!
TBC….