THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 56
A DIFFERENT ANDERSON
NICOLE
(with a shaky laugh)
That’s okay, Bruno.
Nicole pried the hu-ge beast loose.
The young boy held out a slender hand to me.
ANDERSON JUNIOR
(with a smile)
I’m Paul Anderson Junior.
I gripped his hand.
He had a firm grip, and I nodded appreciatively.
BOAT
(smiling)
Yaw Boat at your service, sir.”
He smiled at his sister, still holding my hand.
ANDERSON JUNIOR
(smiling)
He’s very handsome, isn’t he, sis?
Her answering smile was not full as her eyes dwelled briefly on my face.
She turns to the woman on the stairs.
NICOLE
Oh, hello, Mother. Come on down. Come and meet Yaw Boat.
She came down haltingly, hesitantly, a strained smile on her li-ps. She held out a slender, beautiful hand, and I clasped it lightly.
MRS. ANDERSON
Rosemary Anderson. I’m so glad that you came, Mr. Boat.
BOAT
(smiling)
Yaw will do just fine, Mrs. Anderson.
She smiled back, again tentatively, but it seemed some of the pent-up tension was leaving her body.
MRS. ANDERSON
You must be tired. Do come inside and make yourself at home. I’ve got a hot plate of sweet food for you.
I ru-bbed my stomach and nodded appreciatively.
BOAT
Oh, yeah! Now you’re talking.
The four of us laughed at that, but then the door suddenly opened again…and he came out.
He was wearing a red cardigan over a white shirt, and grey slacks, a casual appearance that was belied by the expensive shoes he was wearing. They were of good leather, and they seemed to shine even in the fading light.
Paul Anderson!
I tried to keep the shock off my face as I stared at him.
I had seen him just that once, but his image had been permanently stamped on my memory. The man I was staring at just couldn’t have been the Anderson I had met.
He seemed to have aged a decade more since the last time I saw him.
His face was drawn and gaunt, and un-derneath his eyes were hu-ge bags of fatigue – or something worse.
The lines on his face were dee-per, more pronounced, and instead of making his face look strong and wise, it made him look old now and strangely haggard. He seemed to have less hair and had gone even greyer than the last time we met.
He just couldn’t have been the same man!
The Paul Anderson I had seen had been strong, enigmatic, ha-rd and totally confident; his magnetism was something that had stayed on in my mind.
The one I was looking at now seemed like an empty shell, like he had been drained of substance, of something tangible, and all that was left of him was a shell.
But, despite that, my fury sizzled as I glared up at him.
Here was the man who had come to me – a poor silly little unbeliever – and given me a message that had turned my life upside down … and he had not stayed around to watch the fun, even when he knew it all could have blown my mind.
The least he could have done was stay around and helped me out of the whole crazy affair, and maybe – just maybe – my old man would have been alive.
He came down the steps with his right hand outstretched and a plastic smile on his thin li-ps.
He spoke in a voice which had lost all its powerful vibrancy.
PAUL ANDERSON
(wearily)
Hello, son. Welcome to our home.
I ignored his hand and glared at him, my body shaking with the urge to knock him down.
BOAT
(in a bitterly whisper)
I could kill you!
Nicole’s drawn breath behind me was enough reason for me to hold my fury in check, and I took a de-eper shuddering breath.
Paul Anderson junior was staring at me in some sort of shocked incomprehension, and I could see the desperate look in the eyes of the older woman.
Anderson grabbed my upper arms and looked straight into my eyes.
For a moment the steel was there in his eyes. He looked at me with compa-ssion, and there was something else there too … a glimpse of fear, a desperate plea that he was trying to keep hidden.
PAUL ANDERSON
(sadly)
You’ve gone throu-ghhell, young man. I un-derstand your anger, and I am cognizant of your bitterness. But believe me, Yaw, the Lord wanted it that way. I had no say in it, and there was absolutely nothing I could have done about that. You’ve seen enough, and God knows you’ve done enough to believe what I’m saying to you.
We stared at each other, two people who had operated on a higher level, a plane where lies and deceit were not necessary, where death was always a step away, and terror was a constant bedfellow.
Looking into his sad old eyes I believed, and from that belief was born a sudden flow of compa-ssion for the old warrior.
Compa-ssion not only for him, but for me, because I knew that there was a transition going on, that we represented a handing over in a game where souls were for the taking, where horror in its undiluted form was always breathing down your ne-ck.
We were the past and the present, and looking at him I realized how my life was going to be.
There was all probability that a decade from now I would be looking as scared as he was, and as hopelessly helpless.
No one could survive the life of an Unblind, and that realization sent chills down my spine and strengthened my resolution to avoid that life at all cost.
All that pa-ssed between us, and when he stepped back there was a bit more color on his cheeks.
PAUL ANDERSON
(gently)
Do come inside, Yaw. Come get something to eat, take a bath and rest. We have a lot to talk about.
I walked beside him as we climbed the steps, and suddenly the air felt chilly.
I felt sudden goose bumps on my skin and I whirled suddenly.
I had felt it … evil had been staring at me.
My eyes roved the grounds, but there was nothing.
Nicole suddenly spoke with some alarm, and I realized suddenly that they were staring at me with sudden trepidation.
NICOLE
(NICOLE
(anxiously)
Yaw, what’s wrong?
I smiled wanly.
BOAT
Its ok, there’s nothing wrong.
I walked inside quickly.
But I knew there was a lot wrong.
I had felt the malevolent stare and the a-ssociated chill that always accompanied it. I had smelt the sickening stench that was a companion to it.
The Legion.
They had arrived.
And they had found me.
A TROUBLED WOMAN
The guest room they gave me was located at the end of a long corridor.
It was a spacious comfortable room. The bed was hu-ge, the mattress firm. Low leather chairs were arranged in the middle, and close to that was a dark mahogany desk and a matching leather-backed chair.
The sliding doors of the wardrobe were made with mirrors. A little refrigerator hummed in the corner. A fifteen-inch Sony television was fixed in one corner, about eight feet off the ground.
The bathroom had a real bath and a neat WC. hu-ge gla-ss doors opened unto a little porch that had a wonderful view of the garden beyond and the hills rising into the sky beyond.
I took a long cold bath and sli-pped into black slacks and a clean white shirt.
The tentative knock came when I was sli-pping a gold cufflink on my left sleeve.
BOAT
Please come in.
I said, my breath catching for a moment as I imagined Nicole entering with a sweet smile on her face just for me.
It was Mrs. Rosemary Anderson though.
She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. She looked at me, trying to see something which was way beyond her.
Somehow I felt stri-pped un-der her stare, and just a little bit piqued. She wanted answers I wasn’t sure I could give her, and that for-ced me into a mental state of defensiveness that I hated very much.
MRS. ANDERSON
Dinner is served, Yaw. Please do join us.
BOAT
(calmly)
I’m hungry enough to eat a horse. But dinner is really not why you’re here, is it?
Also read – The Second Sight – Episode 38
My directness threw her off guard, and for a brief moment she clasped her hands together and almost wringed them.
The look on her face was suddenly real and desperate, the look of a terrified woman who was trying unsuccessfully to hold onto her sanity. She crossed the room quickly, and her hands gripped mine in a strong hold.
She looked at my face, and all her fears poured out of her soul as sudden tears welled up in her eyes.
MRS. ANDERSON
(desperately, voice strained)
Oh, Yaw! I think I’m going out of my mind! Please, please promise me you’ll not let harm come to my husband!
I shook my head, exasperated.
BOAT
(softly)
Ma’am, really, I need your husband more than he needs me. I don’t know what is going on here but –
I was trying to pry myself free from her vice-like grip.
MRS. ANDERSON
(desperately, eyes wild)
Promise me! Promise me!
BOAT
Alright, alright, I promise!
She released me. She looked down at her feet, and a faint color began up her cheeks. She took quick steps backward.
She brushed the tears from her cheeks with a quick violent movement of her lower wrist, and then she gave me a brief nod and quickly left the room.
I stared at the closed door for a long time.
I felt hemmed in, and I needed some respite. She was a good woman, and was obviously just following the dictates of her heart, but in doing so she was slowly eroding my confidence and the de-eper anger I felt for the Legion.
I had lost my father un-der rather barbaric circu-mstances, and that sight had kept me moving, and had kept the fire burning.
That de-eper anger had somehow bolstered my confidence, and there was nothing I would have wanted more than an immediate showdown with the hostile demons that had done my old man in.
At least that had been the way I had been feeling; suddenly, Portville was doing something awful to my resolve and determination.
Slowly my armor was being peeled away, layer by layer. Suddenly my inward inclination was to get the hell out of Portville.
I made my way to the dining room slowly. I was still hungry, but the pangs were somehow dulled by the woman’s strange behavior.
The room was warm, and aglow with soft lighting.
The dining-table was oval and gla-ss-topped. The chairs had high backs and made with polished silver. Exquisite chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The rug on the floor was maroon and soft, muting my footsteps as I entered.
The Andersons had guests for dinner.
I took it all in with one glance.
One was a tall dark man in an excellently-tailored tuxedo.
He was sitting at a medium-sized piano in one corner of the room, doing a rendition of a Mozart piece – I was familiar with the tune, but I didn’t know the title of the cla-ssic; all cla-ssics sort of bored me, naturally, and I had never bothered to find out the salient facts about them.
The rendition was decent, but the man’s face bore nothing; he wasn’t happy, and yet he wasn’t sad. It was a strange kind of thing watching that cold face methodically following the movements of the fingers as they danced over the piano keys.
There was also an elderly distinguished couple and a younger man.
The couples looked upper-cla-ss; the man was dressed in a flowing, embroidered white attire that looked African and fitted him well.
The woman – whom I a-ssumed was his wife – was ageing well, her silver-grey hair well-groomed. Her light grey gown fitted her buxom figure well.
I noticed, however, the proud thr-ust of her aristocratic nose, as if she were sniffing out the air, trying to separate herself from the unwanted attention of other inferior elements.
Her husband was lean and straight with the true bearing of a retired military man. He was also aloof, but it was more controlled.
He was holding a tumbler of wine, and as I entered he turned and gave me a slow full look.
The younger man beside him could have been an exact replica of his father – yeah, I had guessed the family tie because it was that obvious – save for the fact that he was a full head taller, and had the long beaked nose of his mother.
His face was lean and pleasant, a rugged athletic type that could draw more than a single look from ladies. His tux suited him well; he portrayed the icon of bachelorhood, and I disliked him instantly, maybe because he was standing next to Nicole.
His right arm was dra-ped carelessly around her wai-st as he sipped from the gla-ss in his left hand.
He was whispering something into her ears as I entered, and she giggled, her pretty face alight with vibrant life.
She had changed into a simple green dress that fitted her like a dream, setting off her breathtaking beauty in a way I had never beheld so far.
She took my breath away, and as I watched them I felt an inkling of something basic and raw stirring within me, a feeling of anger mixed with intensified pain, a kind of lousy emotion I had never experienced before.
Anderson, his wife and young son were already seated at the dining-table.
He was at the head, his wife on his right and the boy on his left.
The table was already laid and the pastor was patiently waiting for everyone to be seated. He was in quiet conversation with his wife, and even from where I was standing I could see the strain on their faces.
To be continued…