THE SECOND
SIGHT
Chapter 16
FAIRVIEW MAYHEM
Location: PASTOR GEOFFREY SAM’S RESIDENCE
The effects of his strange encounter with the crows wear off slowly, but by the time Boat enters Fairview he had recovered enough to put a human expression on his face.
Somehow, with the sky above his head and solid ground un-der his feet, and with people all around him, it is easier to accept what had happened to him at the cemetery of horrors.
Fairview is doing fine.
Boat is mildly surprised to see how fast the town has grown. Big sto-res have sprung up, and mas-sive infrastructure additions has brou-ght nice improvements.
The centre of Fairview is now transformed by beautiful buildings and sights that have not been there the last time he had been around.
He drives past what appears to be a small casino. It is not really big, but it is located in the little valley that leads down to the northern tip of the town, and Boat mentally makes a note that maybe it is time he and Bob take a trip down to Fairview to expand business.
They can sell cocaine here and make some great profit margins.
The street address to Pastor Geoffrey Sam’s residence is a long stretch of shiny wealthy tarmac with impeccable houses lined along each side of it.
The lawns are green, manicured and squishy clean.
Clean laundry flap on the lines as Boat cruises by.
Well-fed kids ride bikes and skates un-der the watchful eyes of plump and bored housewives. A serene atmosphere and an air of relaxed luxury permeates the neighbourhood. Sleek cars are parked in the driveways. Men in well-tailored suits come down stairs, ki-ss wives, lift up kids with delight.
A good neighbourhood … full of hell!
Mammoth uglies reign supreme everywhere, clamouring all over the children, embedded in husbands, smashing into wives and impaling them.
It is a terrible sight, and Boat cruises along, doing his best not to look.
Such well-to-do families from the upper clas-s of society … and demons are living right there with them!
It is so pathetic that Boat can ba-rely watch.
Suddenly a tramp lumbers into the street with outstretched palms, almost stepping right in front of his car.
The man, who appears to be mentally unsound, is in tattered shorts and a faded green T-shirt with fading words across the che-st which reads: Lousy T-Shirt from Grand-Father.
Boat honks instinctively, caught unawares by the mad man’s sudden movement. The man gestures toward his mouth with his fingers. He wants money to buy food.
Yaw Boat scoops up some coins from the cu-p holder in the car and tosses them to the mad man, and then he accelerates past him.
Finally Boat sees Pastor Geoffrey Sam’s address on a finely-crafted slab in front of the house, and he turns his car into the driveway.
The Pastor’s residence is one of the nicest houses around. Big and well-designed, it is painted snow white and full of glas-s.
There are three cars parked in front of the house. One is a little green two-door Alpha Romeo. There is a hu-ge Ford family van with the logo of the CHRIST REDEEMED CHURCH on it. The third car is a sleek BMW.
Boat parks behind the Alpha Romeo and gets out.
A power sprinkler is on the lawn, doing a spiral watering of the beautiful lawn, dropping little showers of water on his shoes and peppering the legs of his trousers with tiny brown stains.
A fat, white cat is lying on a settee on the terrace, lazily regarding a co-ckroach crawling up the arm of the settee.
The lawn spreads lushly all around the house, and to Boat’s right is a creditable swimming-pool surrounded by brick-roofed summer huts.
On top of the roof is a fancy structure that looks like roof house, done mostly in glas-s, shimmering in the sun, casting out rainbow colours.
A hu-ge Alsatian dog is squ-atting un-der the nearest hut, and it has a leash around its ne-ck, fastened to a pillar. It gives a mighty bark and co-cks its head to regard Boat, finds him unworthy of his vocal aggression, and puts head back down on his paws.
Yaw Boat climbs the steps to the front door and presses a hand to the door-bell. A melodious bell sounds biiing-bong somewhere de-ep in the house over the strident voice of Kirk Franklin doing one of his frenzied numbers.
Boat puts his thumb on the bell and presses three times in succession.
Biiing-bong…biiing-bong…BIIING-BONG!
Kirk Franklin’s music stops, and a male voice calls from the room. A moment late the knob turns, and the door swings open.
The man standing there is fat, short and bald.
He is wearing a black suit two sizes too small for his explosive girth. The pastor’s collar around his thick ne-ck is bi-ting into the folds of flesh, and Boat notices that its topmost edge is very dirty.
A thick moustache completely hides his upper li-p. Beads of perspiration has formed on his bulbous nose. He smiles and dabs at his nose with a hu-ge white handkerchief.
PASTOR GEOFFREY
(warmly)
Mr. Boat, I presume?
He is holding out a small, w£t hand.
Yaw Boat shakes it carefully, fighting ha-rd against the sudden urge to wipe his palm on his trousers.
The Pastor’s hand is clammy and hot, as if he had been engaged in something not so pious before Boat showed up. Boat wonders briefly if the pastor had been sli-pping one to his missus before he rang the bell, and the sudden intrusive vision of the pastor’s fat bu-ttocks moving up and down in s-×ual bliss nearly makes him burst into laughter.
BOAT
Yes, I’m Yaw Boat.
PASTOR GEOFFREY
Geoffrey Sam at your service. Please, do come in. I’ve been waiting for you.
He stands aside for Boat to enter.
Boat moves past him into the room, taking a cursory look at the expensive and beautiful living-room.
And that is when the fat cat outside shrieks.
It is a terrible, ear-splitting, violent sound that grates on the ears.
That shriek is not normal; it belongs to nightmares.
Boat spins round, his eyes riveted on the cat.
It is standing on the settee, hunched so severely that its body has almost formed a perfect C. The hairs on its body are standing straight, all the hairs, so amazingly straight – and for one wild moment it doesn’t resemble a cat but looks uncannily like a porcu-pine.
The cat’s eyes seem to bulge from its face.
The lazy Alsatian dog is also giving out one terrible br@ying sound. The cat bounces off the settee and flashes between the legs of the startled pastor.
Boat turns to watch it as it disappears throu-gha door that leads from the sitting-room.
The dog is still howling, back-pedalling with its snout pointed vertically up into the sky, its tail stuck so de-eply between its legs it appears almost tailless, its bu-ttocks close to the ground as it retreats in a pitiful gesture that portrays both fear and confusion.
It is the saddest thing Boat has ever seen a dog do.
PASTOR GEOFFREY
(alarmed)
What is going on?
Things are happening too fast, and Boat’s focus is momentarily thrown off-guard.
A female voice speaks behind Boat, and he turns again.
A woman has walked into the living-room. She is tall and awfully thin. Her br£-$ts, however, are gigantic, straining at the green blouse she is wearing.
Boat as-sumes that she is the Pastor’s wife.
MRS. SAM
(confused)
Geof, what’s wrong with them?
She sees Boat, and comes to a startled halt, her hand flying unconsciously to her che-st. She must have caught Boat staring at her tits.
There is a sudden startled gasp behind Boat and once again he turns to face the doorway, and that is when Boat sees the tramp.
It is the same mad man who had begged for money to buy food, the one he had given coins to.
The mad man is rushing up the steps, a hu-ge scary knife held in his left hand, its tip pointing upwards. One edge of the knife is sharp, whilst the other edge is serrated.
Pastor Geoffrey Sam is rooted to the sp-ot with fear, his face filled with terror as he makes little screeching M0-ns in his throat.
Without fully comprehending what is going on Yaw Boat moves in instinctively, his lightning-quick reflexes which have saved his life in many a br@wl coming to the fore.
At an early age Boat had befriended a man who used to teach major arts of fighting – Kung Fu, karate, jiu-jitsu, aikido – to police and army officers.
The old man had crafted his own brutal hand-to-hand combat art which he called GojuFist. He had found an avid student in Yaw Boat, and most afternoons, after school, Old man Wailer Vroom had used his backyard to teach young Boat, and he had become incredibly good at GojuFist.
Boat reaches out, and his hand hooks into the sodden collar of the pastor’s coat, and then he yanks the man of God backward into the room, at the same time kicking out at the door, causing it to swing forward.
The tramp growls in a terrible voice as spittle and froth flies and rolls down his chin, and his expression changes from anger to maniacal fury.
And then, after seeing the mad man’s face fully, Boat finally un-derstands what is going on, and the chilling terror freezes his heart.
He sees that the eyes of the mad man are now a terrible red … and burning crimson red on his forehead is the mark of the beast: 666!
The mad man is not acting on his own.
He has been possessed!
The damn demons haven’t been able to use the crows to stop Boat at the cemetery, and so now they have possessed this mad man to make sure that Boat doesn’t go to see Pastor Paul Anderson.
A red-eyed demon has possessed him, just like the green-eyed beast had possessed Ralph Stebbins!
The shock hits Boat with such relentless for-ce that he stands still, immobilized, still holding onto the collar of the pastor.
The door has almost swung shut, but the destitute hurls himself at it with blind fury, and it the door flies off its hinges.
The pastor’s wife is now screaming shrilly, and the dog outside is now barking wildly.
Geoffrey Sam is struggling now, his eyes bulging wide, and Boat releases him just as the mad man enters the room.
With a roar of fury Boat meets the mad man.
His fear is discarded as insanity propels him forward.
Insanity from fear, from stress, from the nightmare he is living in because of the venomous evil all around him, and he holds nothing back as he swings at the demon-possessed mad man.
His fist smashes into the man’s jaw with all the for-ce of his power behind it.
Any ordinary guy would have dropped to the floor in a faint.
That punch style is Boat’s favourite GojuFist punch, a technique which involves breathing in to garner for-ce and breathing out with the blow so that it connects with the for-ce of your soul.
Before that day, no man has been known to survive it.
He feels the impact jarring throu-ghhis arm, twanging, causing a sharp pain in his shoulder. He has never hit anybody that ha-rd.
The mad man should have been pole-axed. He should have collap-sed with a broken jaw and a bleeding nose.
But tramp’s head moves back just a fraction, and that is all.
Boat shakes his hand, aware of the sharp pain across his knuckles and knowing that he has bruised them badly with that blow.
It had felt like running his hand into the heart of cast iron.
And then the tramp’s right fist sinks into Boat’s belly, knocking the air out of him.
Yaw Boat falls down from the blow, his vision clouding.
He fights against the pain, trying to stay in the real world.
Pastor Sam tries to flee.
Boat’s screams as he lays on the floor joins that of the woman as the mad man raises the knife in his hand, and brings it down savagely.
The pastor, trying to flee, stumbles at that moment, and that action propels him forward, and the knife, aimed at his ne-ck, plunges almost to the hilt just below his right shoulder and just a hair’s breadth short of his spinal cord.
He squeals with terror as blood turned his coat a darker shade, and spews all over the knife and the wrist of the hobo.
The crazy attacker tries to pull his knife free, but the serrated edge get entangled in flesh and cloth, and so he plants his right foot against King’s spine and pulls.
The knife comes free with a ripping sound.
Pastor Sam wails as a crimson hole appeared in his back. His hands grope at the wound, as if he wants to mas-sage the pain away.
His eyes turn to his wife imploringly.
The demon-possessed mad man growls, raises his blood-stained knife, and steps forward, his maddened eyes fixed on the pastor.
With uncanny speed he lunges again. The pastor’s wife screams over and again as the knife zooms in and hits the back of Sam’s fat ne-ck.
King seems to pivot slowly towards Boat, the tip of the knife protruding from his throat like some obscene Adam’s apple.
He makes some sort of guttural sound as blood pours down the sides of his mouth and down his throat.
His eyes seem to glare at Boat accusingly for a moment, and then he performs an almost graceful pirouette and falls down at his wife’s feet.
His body je-rks spasmodically in his death throes as his hands reaches out and grabs his wife’s feet, his face filled with agony and horror.
The mad man is almost on top of the pastor, growling with hatred, bending for the knife which is still stuck in the pastor’s ne-ck.
Boat struggles to his feet, bent over with pain, and stumbles forward drunkenly, afraid that the mad man is going to kill the woman too.
Boat is almost in tears.
He just cannot believe what is happening!
It has just been not more than two minutes since the demon-possessed killer entered the room, but he has acted with unbelievable swiftness, accuracy and brutality.
The savagery and sheer senselessness of the attack fills Boat with a fury so de-ep that he can ba-rely breathe, and yet his feeling of helplessness and inadequacy brings a bitter taste to his mouth.
Such evil, such cras-s violent that nee-ds to be punished and extinguished, and yet there is nothing he can do to harm these for-ces of darkness.
He struggles forward, his horrified eyes picking up the fact that the mad man has planted a dirty foot on King’s head and has pulled out his terrible weapon, almost decapitating the poor man in the process.
The mad man turns on the woman.
Oh, no, you piece of shit, Boat tries to say, but of course nothing comes out. He is too scared and numbed to be capable of any coherent thoughts or speech.
And then, thankfully, it happens.
Just as the mad man nears Mrs. Sam and raises the knife to strike her, the woman she begins to glow.
It is the same dazzling for-ce-field that Boat had seen on the poor widow.
TBC….