Wicked Watcher

I followed the strange sense-memory of the boy as I drove the residential streets searching for his house. Though I recognized the neighborhood in the vision from my time working the beat, not having a street name or house number made it difficult.

After a half-hour cruising, I passed a run-down ranch-style house with a neglected overgrown yard and the gut feeling intensified. The Aether around it was dull and gray, as though all color had been drained from the place. It didn't feel like a home, it was too hollow, too absent of joy... absent of hope.

I slowed to a crawl as I passed and focused on the sensation. This was it, the boy was inside. I drove up two more houses, flipped around, and parked so I had a visual of the front door.

Leo leaned over from the back seat, "what exactly are we waiting for?" 

"You want me to just kick in the door? I don't even know what I'm looking for yet." I said, anxiously tapping my foot on the floorboard.

I didn't have to wait long though. About twenty minutes later an old rusty pickup truck rolled down the street and pulled into the driveway. As the driver exited the car, I felt a pang in my chest as the sense-memory of the boy recognized his father. He wore oil-stained clothes, and coveralls, a mechanic. As he walked up the drive into the front door, his body language relayed his foul mood.

My heart was thumping loudly. Something was going to happen, I could feel it.

Leo eyed me expectantly. "What is this evidence you hope to give to the police?" he asked.

"I'm thinking dammit," I shot back.

Watching the house, emotions coursed through me casting images in my head. 

The mother and son knew he was home and hid in their separate rooms, trying to stay quiet. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. I felt him step on a toy truck and let out a curse. It was the only excuse he needed. He stomped towards his wife's room, furious with her lousy housekeeping. 

Sitting in my driver's seat, I shifted uncomfortably. I knew he would take it out on the wife first. Then it would be the boy's turn, but still, I had nothing tangible. Nothing to offer as proof beyond what I was feeling. Another flash of vision.

I saw him throw the toy at the mother's head and heard her yelp in pain. 

Outside the vision I could vaguely hear shouting coming from the house. His booming voice floating out through the open windows tipped me over the edge.

"Fuck it."

I jumped out of my car and went around to the trunk, grabbing an old bandana from within, and tying it around my face.

I was about to close the trunk when I stopped and glanced at my family's heirloom chest. It was still inside from when Uncle Chuck had given it to me. I considered it for a moment, then opened it and retrieved the vintage nightstick from inside. I spun the old wood stick in my palm and slammed the trunk shut.

Prowling across the road towards the boy's house, I pulled up my jacket hood over my head. I let the senses provided by the talisman guide me to the outside of the boy's bedroom window where I crouched under the windowsill. There, I closed my eyes and waited in a semi-trance state.

I sensed the boy's mother crying curled up in the corner of her room, covering her head feebly with her arms. She whimpered and cowered as the man stormed out of the room and walked down the hall.

The boy hid in his closet, knees pulled to his chest. His tiny heart thumped like mad as he heard his father open the door. He tried his best to stay quiet as giant boots trampled his room. For a pause, there was silence, then... The closet door swung wide.

My eyes flashed open.

Without thinking, I launched headlong into the bedroom window in a single leap, showering the room with broken glass. I rolled up to my feet, witnessing, with my waking eyes, the boy's private hell. 

The father stumbled back in surprise as I burst into the room, "What the hell!" he yelled. 

The monster of a man stood bewildered beside the small closet, his belt still in his hand. The boy was curled into a ball, his arms over his head, eyes shut tight. Seeing it, in the real, made my blood boil over

My eyes darted between the terrified child and the enraged man.

He was easily a foot taller than me. I needed to take him fast before he got his bearings. I rushed him, swinging my baton as hard as I could, catching him in the side. On impact, the large man lifted bodily off his feet, and crashed through the wall and out into the hallway.

I froze in shock, looking through the impossible crater I made with the man's body. I glanced down at the boy. He was gawking at me, still trying to make himself as small as possible in the closet. 

The talisman in my pocket grew warm. I pulled it out, the sapphire in the center was glowing. 

In the hall, the father staggered back to his feet. Though clearly rattled, he shook it off quickly, fuming with pure rage now directed at me.

"'Come into my house!" He bellowed, "I will fucking kill you!" He started back towards the room. 

Even amidst the chaos, I could feel the different sources of fear; the mother hiding in her room, and the boy next to me. A wave of emotions flooded my head. Their terror was palpable, and I could sense, it was not because of me.

I recalled what Leo had said.

"You will hear the cries of the desperate and have the power to answer their prayers."

Through the haze, my own feelings welled up, separating themselves from the whirlwind tearing through my mind. 

Dads were supposed to protect their families. Provide for them and make home feel safe. But this man... this man was no dad. He was a brute. Somewhere in a distant memory, my own inner child felt kinship with this boy. He was going to grow up without a dad, no matter what I did. It hit too close to home. I couldn't change it, couldn't give the kid what he needed. But I could end his torment. 

My eyes narrowed, and my shoulders rounded. My wraith boiled over as I stalked into the hallway to meet this family's tyrant.

"Come and get it," I growled. 

The man let out a yell as he swung wide. He was big, there was no denying it, and if he landed a punch under normal circumstances, he would probably take my head off. But his fist collided with my jaw like a kitten's paw. 

I saw him recoil his hand, face screwed up in pain like he had just punched a brick wall. These clearly weren't normal circumstances. 

Drawing on rusty skills, I whipped the nightstick across both his legs in quick succession. He buckled and fell to his knees, dropping to my eye level.

He threw one last desperate punch; I took it, got under his arm, and pinned him to my side with the stick.

My free hand reached up and grabbed him by his throat. Exerting inhuman strength, I squeezed him so tightly his cheeks turned purple, and his eyes bulged as I pulled his face to mine. 

"You are done here," I whispered. "If you ever look at them again, I will know, I will find you..." 

These were no hollow words. I felt it, I truly would know if he plagued them again. Even in his asphyxiation, I saw comprehension behind his eyes, he knew it too. His fear of me took root. 

With that, I slammed him into the wall, denting the drywall and cracking the stud behind it. He slumped unconscious to the ground. A deafening silence ensued amidst the stir of drywall dust. 

I heard a shuffle of feet down the hall and looked up. The mother had come out of her room. Her face was bruised, and her lip was bleeding. She stared at me in absolute horror. I took a step towards her, and she flinched. I stopped and raised my hands, letting the baton dangle loosely.

"I won't hurt you," I huffed, looking down at her husband. "Neither will he."

Her wide eyes bounced between us.

"Take the boy and go," I said.

Pain flashed across her face and her lip trembled. "H-he will find us," she choked.

I shook my head, "No... he won't".

The boy emerged from the hole in his room. His shoulders were hunched low, eyes darting everywhere looking for danger. His mother waved for him, and he ran to her.

"Go on," I said, "call the cops. Tell them Everything."

She took the boy in her arms, ran through the hall, and out the front door. Moments later I heard a car start and pull out of the drive.

Standing in the wreckage alongside the unconscious brute, I tried to catch my breath. I heard him grunt from the floor and gave him a kick for good measure.

Slowly, I made to leave, walking along the ruined hall past the hole in the boy's bedroom when a movement from inside got my attention. Frowning, I peered into the room.

What I saw made my gut drop out.

There, clinging to the ceiling in the corner of the boy's room was the wicked watcher, its long face and yellow eyes glaring at me. Primitive fear shot through me, and I recoiled from the room, but it was too late.

The watcher dropped to the floor on all fours, then pounced like a wild animal screaming as it charged.

It lurched from the room with such speed I barely registered the movement. I was slow prey to a deadly hunter, unable to escape.

Its body slammed into me, knocking the nightstick from my hands, as we careened down the hallway into the living room. Beastly claws lashed out and white-hot pain seared across my leg as it cut me. 

I screamed in fright, paralyzed by the terror of being mauled by this nightmare. It pinned my arms down with its knobbly knees, while ugly hands reached up and wrapped around my head. It held me down, and its evil slimy tongue wriggled out of its twisted mouth, sliding across my face, and covering me in its foul breath. I yelled out in sheer horror, reaching uselessly for my baton, now so far out of my reach. 

The talisman suddenly heated in my pocket again and, to my surprise, the baton jumped off the floor and flew into my outstretched hand. As it landed in my palm the entire wooden shaft exploded in bright blue flames.

The watcher screamed in shock and leaped away, clinging to the ceiling above. I rolled away as soon as I was clear of the beast and jumped to my feet. Taken aback by the turn of events, I ogled the burning nightstick, confused, and scared.

The watcher hissed, crawling across the roof to get behind me and away from the flames. My overloaded brain processed the important facts; The blue fire scared the watcher... the blue fire might hurt the watcher. 

I spun on my heels tracking the beast across the ceiling as it bounded off the walls, readying another attack. I tried to keep the flames between us, but the thing was so fast. It jumped to and fro so quickly that I couldn't keep up, and it eventually found its opening.

It dived, sweeping my legs out from under me. I hit the ground with a thud but managed to swing wide with my baton. As I fell, I caught the creature across its flank.

The nightstick struck the watcher, and it was engulfed in the blue flames. The fire spread across its flesh instantly, and the monster fell to the floor. It flailed about, screaming, and thrashing on the ground as it burned. I backed away and watched in amazement as it stumbled into the center of the room. 

Suddenly, the floor under me began to rumble and the carpet underneath the immolated monster tore itself apart. The ground collapsed, giving way to an impossibly deep dark chasm.

"Whoa!"

I jumped up, getting as far away from the hole as I could. The watcher, still burning, clung desperately to the carpeted floor as the massive hole beneath it opened wider. Something inside the chasm began sucking in the very air from the room causing the drapes from the living room window to whip about. The watcher let out one final horrible scream before it succumbed to the pull of the vortex and was pulled down into it. 

As soon as the watcher vanished, the vortex slowed, the earth stopped shaking, and the broken ground began to repair itself. The flooring rose back into place and the carpet was sealed as though it had never been torn.

The room settled and quieted, leaving nothing but an unexplainable scent of rotten eggs lingering in the air. 

The baton extinguished itself, and I slid to the ground, flat against the wall in utter shock, until the distant sound of sirens floated in through the broken window in the boy's room and roused me. 

Leo walked in through the hole in the wall, taking in the unconscious man and the wrecked house with only mild interest.

"Time to go, don't you think?" he asked as the sirens grew closer.

Shakily I rose to my feet and walked to the front door. I exited the house, limped across the street to my car, and climbed in. Pulling the bandana off my face, I turned the key and tried to steady my hands enough to steer.

A moment later, I left the scene and pulled onto the nearest major road, passing the responding squad cars as I drove away. 

What the hell did I just do...