THE SECOND
SIGHT
Chapter 33
A BATTLE OF WILLS
Location: STREETS OF MADINA
Boat is bruised and badly battered.
He tries to ignore the pain that is racking his body as he drives.
He has to stay focused and relegate all other matters to the background. Crazy things have happened, and he is in a world where insanity and reality are bedfellows.
There was no time to dwell on the horrors that he has witnessed; he can only speculate on the role Uncle Samson had played in his life, all throu-ghthe years.
He is being prepared for a terrible future, and the man in charge of that destruction has turned out to be none other than a man he loves almost as much as his father.
Africans have a proverb of sorts for that kind of betrayal; the beast that will give you that fatal bite is right in your clothes!
How absolutely befitting!
What would have happened in that chamber of horrors? What would Samson have done with him?
And worse of all: what is that Shadow-Thing?
A shadow that can move, not cast by anything! Maybe too powerful for even an unblinded man to see physically?
Insanity!
Boat hits town in record time. It is a miracle that he has no cops on his tail, but then again, it isn’t a very usual kind of night.
He pays no heed to the uglies this time. He is however a little surprised to find that instead of fear he now feels contempt – and yes, a whole lot of anger – towards them.
Yaw Boat wishes he has the power to reach out and squee-zethe damn things till their eyes and innards pops out. He wishes he can kick them, cut them and burn them all to hell. H wishes he can stomp on them repeatedly until they M0-n and beg for mercy.
Yes, for the very first time he just wants to maim them!
And in that crazy instant Boat remembers Anderson again!
Everything has panned out. He has received the damn gift which, to him anyway, is a curse. As that crazy pastor had stated in his letter, he is an Unblind, but he does not have the powers that real Unblinds have over these beasties.
What he has seen in Uncle Samson’s – no, not Uncle Samson anymore, but plain Samson – had also confirmed what the pastor had said about a demon getting ready to possess his body.
So if what Anderson said has become the truth, it means the rest is also going to happen. It is that simple, and it is that scary.
According to Anderson, Boat is in the middle now, and he has only two ways to go: either end up as a demon-controlled evil freak, or a God-empowered good freak chasing horrible spiritual creatures out of the world.
Sure, Boat wishes he has his own for-ce-field. It will be fun seeing those dirty sluts scampering because of him. But that is as far as he wants it to go. He is not carved out for that life, and he wants nothing to do with it.
His choices are limited though. He knows he will be for-ced to make a choice if he is not helped soon. That means he has to be with his father; only he can be of help now.
He has money, and he believes in the faith Anderson has, and he seems to un-derstand the workings of all that spiritual stuff, and knows the play of the turf.
Sure, Joe Boat had expressed the wish that his son will accept the terrible gift and live the life of an Unblind, but Boat knows he has leverage over his father.
Joe Boat is his father, and he loves Boat. He will not like to see his son go throu-ghthe horrors he has been exp-osed to, and in the final an-alysis Boat is sure his father would relent and help him purge that awful gift.
Boat is so lost in his thoughts that he almost runs smack into the back of a hu-ge Ford wagon front of him. He br@kes ha-rd, and the powerful car’s engine whines with protest, and the car comes to a shuddering halt just inches from the back bumper of the Ford.
Boat lets out his breath slowly.
He becomes aware of his surroundings gradually.
There is a cacophony of horn blasts all around him, and he finds himself stuck in the middle of an unusual traffic. His side of the road is not moving, and neither are the cars coming from the opposite direction.
Many of the drivers are out of their cars, gesticulating wildly, evidently annoyed at something. Boat winds down the window and pokes my head out, and immediately his ears are as-saulted by the din of the horns.
He begins to get out, and then he is struck by a sudden realization; he cannot see any uglies around!
There are a lot of people, but there are no horrible spirits anywhere. He gets out quickly and looks around for any for-ce-field that will signify the presence of a true Christian, but there is nothing.
It brings a sick feeling to his guts, and suddenly Yaw Boat very afraid again.
It is so ironic in a way, really, that for the first time that his eyes have been spared the horrors of a terrible trauma, he suddenly feels abnormal, strangely incomplete!
The traffic appears to be locked ahead of him, so he makes his way slowly past the shouting people as he moves forward to ascertain what is causing the hold up.
From snatches of their heated complaints of the stranded drivers he gets the gist of what might have caused the traffic.
Up ahead is an intersection, and it seems a convoy of somebody important is on its way throu-gh, and traffic wardens have stopped traffic on both sides of the intersection to allow the VIP to sail throu-gh.
Boat knows it won’t take more than a few minutes before traffic starts flowing again. It is nothing new; it happens all the time. But Boat cannot accept it. He has reached a stage of existence where every occurrence is abnormal until proven otherwise.
A little cold shiver crawls its way craftily up his spine as it dawns on him that this can also be another net, designed to delay him until the opening is ti-ghtly cinched shut.
There are hu-ge cops all over the place, paying deaf ears to the barrage of voices, trying to calm down the impatient drivers in their cold persuasive ways.
Up ahead a particularly large cop is urging a driver to get back inside his car and take his little son with him. Evidently the little boy is hyperactive, and can decide to do any number of foolish things young people his age are prone to do.
The driver picks up his son, tosses him into his car, and enters the car himself.
Just then the sirens come, and the dispatch riders shot past on their sleek motorcycles. Boat heaves an audible sigh of relief and begins to turn away, intending to head back to his car.
And then the hu-ge policeman turns, and fixes Boat with a stare.
The mark of the beast blazes a terrible red on his forehead, and his eyes are a violent yellow; no blacks, no whites… just that sea of rabid yellow!
His nose trembles and lifts upwards, and his li-ps came off his teeth in a snarl.
Another possessed vessel!
BOAT
(terrified)
Damn! Oh, hell!
The hu-ge cop begins to walk towards Boat, his right hand reaching for the thick baton at his wai-st.
It is the same old story again.
Now Boat un-derstands why the uglies are absent, and why there has been a road block at that particular time. His suspicions have been bang on, and he smiles grimly.
He is now reading the pitch right, beginning to get a grasp of the rules, and the all-important foul plays.
un-der no circu-mstance is he going to be allowed to see his father.
Here is a senior police officer who can arrest him on any number of charges, render him totally immobile and take him to wherever he is commanded to take Boat.
Boat sees that there is a holstered gun on his hips too, and Boat raises his hands midway in the air, presenting the cop with a picture of a docile sheep, a man who neither seeks nor wants to give any trouble.
The wildness disappeared from the cop’s eyes a bit when he sees that Boat has evidently given up, and although his left hand is on his baton, he makes no attempt to pull it out.
He was tall, maybe a head shorter than Boat, but he is broad and bound in muscle.
COP 1
You’re coming with me, young man.
His voice is a deafening roar that almost bursts Boat’s eardrums… but of course, Boat is the only one that hears that voice.
BOAT
(feigning resignation)
Alright, officer. I give up. I don’t want any trouble.
The cop falls for it, and relaxes his guard just for a fraction of a second, and that is all that Boat nee-ds.
He spins suddenly, his right elbow a propelling weapon that smashes against the policeman’s face.
Boat feels the man’s nose crunching, his head snapping back with the impact, and a guttural scream emerging from his throat.
Blood spurted from his nose and covers the face of a pretty woman leaning out of an Alpha Romeo sedan.
The cop raises his hands to his face, still whimpering in agony. That is both a wrong and daft move. He lays his body wide open for attacks, and Boat obliges by ramming a foot into his balls. The man yowls with fresh pain and drops his hands to cu-p the blazing agony in his groin.
Another daft move.
Boat chops him across his throat with the rigid edge of his right hand, and he falls down, gagging for breath, dry-retching and writhing in agony.
Some of the drivers, shocked at the apparent unprovoked attack on a policeman by an evidently mad civilian, are screaming for help as Boat turns and flees towards his car.
The presidential convoy has pas-sed, and already the cars stuck in the traffic are beginning to move again.
Yaw Boat is about twenty meters from his father’s Mercedes when it explodes.
Just like that!
One moment it is sitting there, pretty and large and waiting for him to enter and drive away …and then in the next moment it jumps slightly as it explodes with a loud booming noise, and bluish-yellow and red fire engulfs it.
Glas-s fragments shoot out like bullets, and Boat drops to the street fast to avoid his eyes and face getting cut up with glas-s fragments.
People are screaming.
The car just in front of the Mercedes bucks as all its glas-s exploded – windscreen, back glas-s and windows. A grey-haired man who has been getting into a hu-ge Hummer falls down, blood running down his face in rivulets as more glas-s showers down on him.
A speeding Chevy from the opposite side of the road skids off and climbs the intersection embankment and plunges full head into a fancy sports car parked just behind the burning Mercedes.
Boat sees it all with a coldly disinterested eye because his whole attention is focused on his burning car. As the yellow flames lic-k upwards into the night sky, Boat’s horrified eyes sees evil once again.
Rising from the depths of the fire, gaining height and stature, is a gigantic three-legged shadow with a horn on its head!
The Shadow-Thing!
The shock is paralysing, and Boat’s mouth opens in a soundless scream. He back-pedals, gets to his feet, and then turns to flee.
That is when Hideous rises up from the middle of the street just in front of Yaw Boat and wraps itself around Boat’s legs.
Boat tries to move, but he can’t so much as lift a leg. He remembers Bob immediately. Poor old Bob, held right in the middle of the street, unable to move, watching as the truck that will kill him drew nearer and nearer.
He fights ha-rder, desperately, but to no avail. Hideous has fixed him good.
Boat sees a dark shape moving across the side of the Hummer: it was the Shadow-Thing!
Boat sees its hu-ge three-fingered right hand close into a fist and begins to swing.
He knows that the blow is coming for him again, and fear cripples his mind.
BOAT
(screaming)
No, no…. NOOOOO!
He steels himself for the blow, but even then when it comes it is ha-rd and laden with pain.
It smashes into Boat’s stomach, and he gasps with the pain. Another blow, a roundhouse this time, smashes against his right cheek and he falls down, blood spurting from his nostrils.
Boat hits the back of his head ha-rd against the tarmac, and he lays there, weak and totally done for, ha-rdly able to move a finger.
BOAT
(muttering weakly)
Dirty evil bastards!
Two cops appear suddenly, and they ignore the wounded cop completely and comes towards Boat. One is holding a drawn Police Special, whilst the other is dangling a pair of handcuffs in his hand.
On their foreheads, of course, is that one special thing – the mark of the beast, 666, blazing blood red.
The painful tears of failure, of being captured, stings Boat’s eyes.
A crowd is gathering, and Boat knows de-ep down that his chances of escape are really slim.
He can see the shocked looks on the faces around him. Little innocent people who don’t know what is going down, and obviously thinks, erroneously, that Yaw Boat is a criminal.
There is no fight left in Boat.
He struggles to a sitting position.
TBc…