Word Count: 8,115
Most children have imaginary friends when they are young, and I was no different. My parents marveled at my imagination. They thought I was very creative because I could describe my friends in expressly intricate detail. Most of my friends were not people. Some of them were animals, and some were very abstract.
My parents allowed me to play with my imaginary friends all day. I was their only child, and we lived an hour away from the nearest store. In the 400+ square miles that made up our scattered community, only a couple of dozen families occupied the region. Until I began school, the only time I saw children my own age was when we needed to go to town for groceries or canning supplies.
Although I never realized it, I grew up in extreme poverty. Most of the food we ate was what mother could grow in the garden. She was out there every day killing bugs and pulling weeds. She could not miss one long day of work without threatening our food supply for the next several weeks.
Most of the vegetables grown in our garden were the kind that produced a high turnover. Summer squash, tomatoes, and okra dominated the garden during the spring and summer. Before fall drew too near, I helped her plant turnips, radishes, and winter squash.
Father did odd jobs for other families in the region to earn some money. Jimmy Carter was president of the United States and we watched as one industry after another moved out of the country. In four years, the man managed to turn the economy from one based on production to one based on service. The money this country worked so hard to generate over a hundred years was gone in less than four.
Many farms in the state were going bankrupt. Father’s family lost the land our name farmed for six generations. Most everyone moved away after grandma and grandpa died. Father was stubborn and refused to leave the land in which he was raised. We lived on the six acres that we were left after the bank foreclosed on her hereditary farm.
The families who retained their farms threw my father worked when they could. The banks sold the foreclosed lands to large farming conglomerates who made it difficult for the locals to compete. Even more families lost their farms as the corporations made it too expensive to match. The large companies had the buying power to keep up with the latest agricultural technology advances. Most family-owned farms used equipment a decade old.
Since my parents never had any time available for me, they did not think too much about my friends and I spending the day playing out in the yard. They were glad that I was happy and content. I never whined for more than I already had, and I could keep myself occupied for hours.
I was polite. I had good manners, and I always treated my elders with respect. Mom and dad thought I was a perfect child. It made me happy to make them proud.
When I began attending school, my happy life started to change. Initially, I had no trouble making friends in kindergarten. At that age, many children still played with imaginary friends. The more I played with other children, the less I liked to do so. When playing pretend, other children sometimes told me what my imaginary friends were doing in relation to theirs.
It upset me that the other children seemed to presume to know what my long-time friends did. I knew mom and dad could not see my companions. I figured that out long before I started school. I knew this because my parents never paid attention to them. After I started school, I thought the other children might be able to see them. At first, I thought they could. School was new to us all, and when the children of my class played together, we pretended to be in many wondrous places and to see many spectacular things.
I quickly began to realize that no one else really saw my lifelong companions. The other children acted like they saw my friends, but their descriptions of what they saw were always wrong. I could not see their imaginary friends either, and that initially seemed normal. What told me otherwise where the inconsistencies. The other childrens’ descriptions of their friends changed too often as did their behavior. This was when I realize their imaginary friends really were imaginary.
As the school year progressed, the other children slowly forgot about their imaginary friends. Now they had real friends, they no longer needed to pretend. My imaginary friends on the other hand went nowhere. I soon found it difficult to interact with other children in my grade. As they grouped off and started to forming cliques, they shunned me.
Eventually I became the object of ridicule. My classmates called me a baby because I still played with imaginary friends. What was I supposed to do? I could not make them go away. At times they left of their own accord, but it did not usually take long before more appeared. I tried to ignore them, thinking perhaps they would go away. Not only did they not go away, they tried harder and harder to get my attention.
The school year was winding down, and my teacher was concerned that I grew increasingly withdrawn from the other children. She called my parents to the school for a parent – teacher conference. They made me sit in the secretary’s office so I would not know what they were discussing. I did not need to be in there; some of my friends were. They constantly went in and out, relaying to me what was being said.
My teacher thought I had some sort of behavioral disability. Mother asked if I fell behind on my work, but the teacher told her no. Mother asked if I had difficulty learning. Again, the teacher told her no. Dad asked if I was being disruptive or causing problems in class. Again, the answer was no.
My parents did not understand why my teacher thought there was a problem. She told them that I am still playing with imaginary friends while other children went on to play with each other. She told my mom and dad that she thought my problems stemmed from home.
I did not need to have my friends tell me what happened next. I heard it through the door just fine on my own.
“How dare you,” my mother shouted. “You have no idea what my family has been through.”
“I’m sorry we all can’t have government jobs like you lady,” father added. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
The teacher tried to defend herself, but my parents did not give her time.
“How many children do you have?” Mother demanded.
“None,” the lady said, “but I have taken many childhood development courses while….”
She was not allowed to finish.
“Then you know diddly squat about how or what it’s like to raise a child,” mother yelled. “When you have a kid, I’ll make sure to come back when he’s in school and tell you everything I think is wrong with him.”
That was the end of the conversation. My parents stormed out of the conference room. I thought they would yell at me, but they did not. It was quite the opposite. When they stepped out of that office, their faces were red with anger.
“Come on son,” my mom said gently. “Let’s go home.”
State law did not require children to attend kindergarten, so my parents kept me out for the last two weeks before summer vacation. That was fine with me. I already saw the flaws in the developing school social structure. I was happy to be away from that place.
Mom needed my help in the garden anyway. The squash and okra came in like wild due to recent rains. We had to get it all washed, cut, and canned while it was still good. Tomatoes and onions were coming in real nice too. That meant we could get to eat some fresh stewed okra and tomatoes for a while. Add in some fried squash and cornbread and we had some good meals coming.
One of the family’s father helped on occasion raised hogs. When they were unable to pay dad the amount they promised him on a job, they sent him home with one of their fattest pigs. That was better than money. We could get much more meat out of that hog than we could ever have with the money. The problem was that we did not have an ice box in which to store the meat.
A few days later he came home with meat packing paper and tape. Early the next morning, we got the scalding tub boiling then Dad put a bullet in the hog’s skull. The hams were cured in brine along with some of the fat. We spent the whole day processing the hog and, in exchange for the loins, another neighbor stored the perishable meat for us in their freezer.
We used every part of the hog we could. Dad took the head and made headcheese with it. The belly we salted and cold smoked for a week to make some good bacon. We did not smoke hams until they soaked in brine for a couple of weeks. We even boiled up the skin until it was good and soft which we then fried crispy.
Even the cartilage at the knuckles of the bones was used. Mom rendered that down into gelatin which she later used to make jellies and preserves. The roasted bones added flavor to our black-eyed peas. Mom even pickled the feet to save for the winter months. We did not let one part of that animal go to waste.
My friends understood I was busy and left me alone. Once the hams were hanging and the canning was finished for now, I went back to spending my days playing on ours and the surrounding land. We made up games and played for hours on end. I did not need toys or television. Nature provided plenty of entertainment for a creative child.
A few years later, when I entered the second grade, I already had the reputation of being “that weird kid.’ I saw the hierarchy form among my classmates. The biggest and dumbest kid stood on top, keeping other kids in line by beating them up. In the third week of the school year, the brute turned his sights on me.
We were the same size in kindergarten and in the first grade. He must have drunk too much of that hormone filled corporate milk, because he nearly doubled in size by the time we made it to the second grade. He backed me against the wall. Pushing me hard, he may my back bounce away from the wall only to slam me back into it again.
One of my companions could no longer watch the other boy bully me and took action. This particular friend was the last one I thought would act violently. I called him Pinky, at least I think it was a he. Pinky’s body was as round as a ball and covered in pink hair. Pinky had two fixed eyes, one on each end of its body. Above each of those another eye rose up on a ropey stalk. He did not have a mouth I had ever seen. Pinky moved about using long tendrils that reminded me of long bottle brushes.
My pink friend wrapped one of his tendrils around the boy’s leg and squeezed. The bully screamed in pain and fell writhing to the ground. When Pinky let go of the kid’s leg, he left a mass of wire like spines embedded in the boy’s skin. My tormentor grabbed his shins as he cried tears of agony. I thought his hand would brush away the spines, but it passed through them like they were not there.
I yelled at Pinky, scolding him for his actions. The eyes of the other children turned back from the child squirming on the ground to stare at me. They all looked at me with such fear in their eyes that I expected them all to run. Instead, they all stood glaring at me.
Several teachers came running when they heard the commotion. One teacher lifted the sobbing boy and his arms and carried him to the nurse’s office. A second teacher demanded someone tell her what happened to the boy, and all of the other children pointed to me. I tried to tell her I did not do it, Pinky did. She snarled something about me making up stories. Grabbing my arm painfully tight, she angrily dragged me to the principal’s office.
I tried telling themI did not do it, Pinky did. My principal told me he was tired of me lying and sat me in the empty conference room. I did not know what was going on. All of my friends ran when Pinky attacked while all the children stood in fear. I had no one around to look in the other room for me. Five minutes passed, and I heard the noise of the local fire truck pulling into the school parking lot. A few minutes later the sheriff, or one of his deputies arrived as well.
I had to know what was going on, and I finally climbed onto the table beneath a high window. One of the firemen carried the bully to the police car. He climbed in the backseat with the boy, and the deputy threw gravel into the air as he drove away with them.
They left me in the conference room for thirty minutes before the sheriff arrived with my mother. They stopped outside and talked with the principal and the mean teacher that drug me down here. When I saw them walking toward the building, I jumped down from the table and sat back in the seat. A few minutes later my mother, the principal, and the sheriff all came into the room. I immediately started crying. I was afraid I was going to jail.
Mother came over and I ran into her arms. The sheriff assured me that I was in no trouble. He crouched down with his hands on his knees and looked into my eyes.
“Do you know what happened to Brandon?” he asked me.
I told him how the boy bullied me and pushed me against the wall. I hesitated before I went on any further. Telling them the truth about Pinky was obviously not going to work. No one believed my pink furry friend existed, and continuing to insist it was his fault would only make me look like more of a liar. Instead, I told them that the boy pushed me a few times and then fell down crying.
“Did you see a spider or any kind of bug on the kids leg?” the sheriff inquired.
I shook my head feebly and replied, “No sir.”
The sheriff told me to try and remember. He asked me if I saw a bee, wasp, or even a horse fly buzzing about at the time of the confrontation.
I told him no, but he asked me again, asking me if I was absolutely certain. I had assured him I did not see any spider or any other kind of bug bite the boy. This was not a lie. Pinky was not a bug. I did not know what he was, but he was not a bug.
After a few more questions, the sheriff drove mother and me home. Apparently, the buses already took most everyone else home.
The boy stayed in the hospital about an hour and a half away from here. School was canceled until they could make sure that the building was fumigated and disinfected. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with the boy. The hospital placed him in quarantine. They even flew in specialists from the CDC. No one knew what made him so sick, and it became a worry that some previously unknown virus was attacking that bully’s body. Until it could be identified, the parents did not want their children congregating in one place.
Three days after the attack, the boy died. They said something destroyed his internal organs, but none of the doctors could find a cause. His body was sent to some special hospital research facility. No children were allowed to go to school or even to play with the other children because their parents feared for their lives.
I knew what happened. When my friends began to return, they told me Pinky’s spines introduced a poison into his system. Normally, in his own world, Pinky’s poison only caused temporary paralysis of the attacked tissue. None of them knew it would affect the human and such a gruesome way.
I knew Pinky did not mean to kill the boy, and I eventually got past my anger with him. My little pink friend acted like a scolded puppy until I forgave him. I made him promise not to hurt anyone else again. He could not answer me, not in any traditional way, but I knew he understood.
Three weeks after the incident, it was determined it was no poisonous insect or reptile that killed the boy nor did any detectable pathogen. School resumed. Even though nobody saw me do anything to the bully, they all stayed away from me. They stopped picking on me, they stop sitting near me, and they stop playing with me on the playground. They were all afraid of dying if they got near me. In light of the Pinky incident, I cannot say I blamed them.
Rumors circulated saying that I was cursed. The story grew until it was my whole family that was cursed. That, people said, was why our crops failed to the point that we lost our land. Banks foreclosed on a dozen farms, but that did not matter. We were the only ones to be labeled as being cursed.
A new family bought some of the seized land at the end of my fourth-grade year. The man that bought the land thought the whole notion of a curse was idiotic. He knew many farms failed and were foreclosed upon, and he did not think my family any different. He felt bad for us so he gave Dad a regular job on his farm.
The new family had three children. One boy who was two years older than me, would attend the junior high school in the fall. Their youngest boy was only going to the first grade, but their daughter was the same age as me. I played with her on several occasions while my dad was working for hers. We played for hours at a time, and I grew quite fond of her.
When I began the fifth grade, Tamara and I spent a lot of time together. The other children did not want to play with me because of the whole cursed story. They would not play with Tamara because she was friends with me.
Her older brother did not like her being my friend. He thought Tamara was going to have enough trouble making friends at a new school. When he heard the stories about me, he decided to confront me.
The elementary school and junior high school students rode the same buses. One day, when Tamara stayed home sick, her brother told me I better not ever come over to his house again. He said, if I did not stop hanging around with her, he was going to beat me up. He also said, if I told Tamara about this, he would beat me up even more. Her brother was a big kid, and his threats deeply scared me.
The next day Tamara came to school, she sat beside me on the bus. I could only think of her brother’s threats. I kept my eye on him the whole ride to school. He sat at the front of the bus instead of the back as usual with the older children. He glanced back at us once. As soon as he saw me watching him, Tamara’s brother snapped his gaze back to the front of the bus. It was clear he was suddenly afraid of me. I began to worry that one of my friends did something to him. I would have to talk with them when we had some privacy.
All the ones I knew said they did not do anything to the brother. Not all of them were known for their honesty, but I believed them. If they did not scare the brother into leaving me alone, who did? That would be a question I would not answer for many years.
Our first day and junior high school was mostly a day of learning our way around. The second day things already turned sour. Tamara and I stood in front of her locker talking before lunch, and a group of five eighth-grade girls approached us.
The girls were really mean to Tamara. They made fun of her hair, laughed at her for not wearing makeup, and said bad things about her choice of clothing. I expected her to get upset and cry, but she did not. Instead, she shot back with her own insult.
“Ooo,” she said. “It took five of you to come up with all of that. What, do you all share one single brain?”
The five popular girls did not know how to come back. One of them warned her to mind her place than the five sauntered off. The girls made it to the entrance to the cafeteria, and the one in the middle fell flat to her face. It looked like someone grabbed her by the feet, but none of my companions were anywhere near them. She must have tripped over her own feet.
All of the children in the hallway burst in an uproar of laughter. The stuck-up young girl climbed back to her feet and screamed to the other children to shut up. When they continued to laugh the girl began crying and ran out of the building.
I looked at Tamara. She had a thin sly smile on her face. I was positive she knew something, but this was not the proper place to bring it up. When the opportunity arose, I would ask her how she did that. We went on to lunch and finished out the day.
I got off the bus at her stop because I saw Dad’s truck parked at their house. He must have caught a ride to work with Tamara’s dad this morning. That was great. We had three hours before our dads returned. That gave me a chance to talk to her about the strange happening at school today.
When we exited the bus, Tamara’s older brother got off the bus. Without ever looking at the two of us, he walked straight to their house at a faster than normal pace. I knew I had to talk to the others later. I was sure one of them had done something to the boy.
Tamara and I walked down the long driveway escorting her younger brother. As we approached the house, she told the little one to run inside to grab a snack. Once we were alone, Tamara reached out and held my hand. She invited me for a walk.
Blushing, I stammered a “Yes-yes.”
Continuing to hold my hand, she led me to the woods behind their yard. She found a nice trail through the forest and took me along the path. I was so nervous, I could not think of anything to say. I never held a girl’s hand before.
The smell of the forest was refreshing. A light breeze pushed through the trees as the insects and birds sang. It was a beautiful day. It was the perfect day for a walk. I wanted to ask her about school, but now that she was holding my hand, I did not want to ruin it. At the time all I could do was try to force myself to say something to her.
“It sure is a nice day,” I finally managed to say.
That was all it took. We both opened up and talked about all sorts of things. School today was not one of them. I told her how we lost our farm, how a lot of people lost their farms. I explained how large conglomerates bought most of the land, running them with high-tech machines. She feared her family bought what was once my family’s land, but I assured her they did not.
Several weeks passed, and the two of us became inseparable. Finally, on the third celebration of our walk through the forest, I asked her to be my girlfriend. I was absolutely elated when she said yes. When I started school, I thought I would spend the next twelve years as a loner.
The older I got, the more I could see others. I thought my preschool friends were strange. Some of my newer companions were stranger still. Not all of them were nice, but my friends protected me from the unfriendly ones.
Years passed and many of my oldest friends no longer came around. I made other, stranger friends, but I also saw more of the beings of chaos. It seemed like those darker creatures wanted to get close to me, but so far I always had those who would protect me. I do not know what these demented creatures wanted with me, and I was always afraid to ask my companions. I felt much better not knowing.
As our relationship progressed, I became ever more fearful that one of these chaotic creatures would harm Tamara. They seemed to come around more often when I spent time with her. The world was broadening around me and I became ever more aware that these creatures I once thought were imaginary were just as real as every person I knew. I do not know why I was the only one who could see them. I did know they surrounded me all the time.
It did not matter what buildings or objects obstructed my movements, most of the ones I encountered moved through physical objects as if they did not exist. Sometimes they seem to have to navigate through ghostlike structures that acted like no more than a fog to me. Some of them did not appear to notice each other.
Long ago I learned not to let on as to what I saw. After the incident with Pinky when I was in the first grade, I knew no one would believe me if I told them the truth. I lived with this lie all on my own.
As my body and mind matured, I realize some of those things I saw were the things people called ghosts. At death, a consciousness was not destroyed, it simply passed the barrier into one of the intangible worlds. Sometimes, they could temporarily push through and move things, or appear in our world. This was the case with Pinky. His anger over my treatment allowed him to reach across and attacked the bully.
I knew Pinky did not mean to hurt that bully, at least, he did not mean to kill him. In his world his spines are harmless. They cause pain, but in the same way as when one touches a cactus. Something made the boy’s system react violently to the intangible needles. Doctors never did figure out what killed the bully. All they found were very minute traces of an unknown compound attached to one of a million blood cells. This latest discovery was only made last year by a team of scientists working on the case all this time.
The Halloween of my junior year in high school, Tamara and I decided to spend the night at my house. We took a walk through the woods using nothing but the moonlight. I did not tell her, but I ask a few of my formless friends to light the way for me. I was glad I asked for their company because I saw many of the devious creatures hidden throughout the forest.
We found a nice clearing and laid on the ground staring at the stars. She talked about all of the alien life that must be up there. I agreed with her speculations not wanting to tell her we were surrounded by aliens all of the time. If I told her I talked with all sorts of creatures on a regular basis, she would break up with me for sure. I loved her too much to chase her away. I could not make her think I was insane.
We made love for the first time. We were both 17, and we were best friends since second grade. Although we officially dated for four years, I never pressured her for sex. Tonight, it just happened. It felt like the right time. We were both ready. I never felt more in tune with her since we met.
We shared a blissful hour together. Both of us grinning from ear to ear, we walked back through the forest to my house. The two of us could not help chuckling occasionally. Instead of holding hands, I put my arm around her lower back and her left hand was in my back pocket. I was afraid sex would make things awkward between us, but it only made things better. This was a perfect night.
After arriving at my house, we sat on the porch swing. Sometimes we kissed flirtingly, but most of the time we spent speculating about our futures. We both did very well in school. An academic scholarship would be the only way I could go on to college. Tamara’s parents could afford to send her, but my family did well to keep the car running and the lights turned on.
She rested her head on my shoulder and we wrapped our arms around each other. Just then some of the other kids wearing masks jumped out from their hiding spots and began pelting me and Tamara with eggs. Laughing on our humiliation, the others ran to a truck hidden off the road and tried to flee.
I tried chasing after them. Tamara screamed. She did not cry or curse them. She simply let out a long piercing shriek. Suddenly what looked like the fangs of a giant maw rose from the ground and punctured all four of the truck’s tires. Quickly hissing out air, the heavy rubber tires instantly went flat. The exposed rims created sparks as they tossed gravel into the air.
The guys in the bed of the truck jumped back out, and I ran at them alone. I did not doubt that all these guys were about to give me a beating of a lifetime. That did not stop me. They would not get away with doing that to the woman I loved.
The truck’s engine suddenly went dead. When the driver turned the ignition switch, the engine smoked and then burst into flames.
I stopped in my tracks as the two people in front of the truck jumped out and ran. I do not know how I knew it was coming, but I leapt to the ground only an instant before the gas tank exploded. I watched the four young men behind the truck lifted and thrown 30 feet through the air. It was not like in the movies. They did not stand there as the force of the explosion only move their hair. The concussive force made these guys literally fly over me and land hard on the gravel road.
Most of my otherworldly friends fled, and the devilish ones moved in. One of them was somewhat spiderlike. A grotesque human face showed in front with two long rows of eyes. A thin whiplike tail protruded from its backend and its body was covered in many scales. The beast chased after the driver.
It did not take the six-legged creature long to catch the young man. With its long-pointed tail, it stabbed the young man in the back of the neck. The boy collapsed and the creature continued to run until I could see it no longer.
I felt something move under the ground beneath me, but I did not see anything. I believe the beast whose fanged maw through the truck tires was going for the four boys on the ground. I could not see it, but I did feel the ground heave slightly. Apparently, this monstrosity had a closer connection to this world than many of the others.
The young man who took the stab in the neck cried out that he could not move. The other three tried to help him to his feet, but the kid hung there like a rag doll. I hoped that the group grotesque spider being only numbed his body and did not permanently paralyze him. I did not want to be responsible for another critical injury or possibly even a death.
The tire rending beast rose up from the ground. It was the most horrific thing I had seen thus far. Its body was somewhat like that of a scallop. It had a hard outside shell that bulged in the center. It was almost as thick as it was wide, and it stood feet high. Surrounding the seal of the bone like shell was a row of long narrow teeth. At what I assumed was the front of the being, the needlelike fangs were nearly four feet long. As it circled around to the side, the fangs grew increasingly shorter and thinner. I yelled at it to stop calling for some of the others to help me.
The horrid creature either could not hear me or did not care to listen. The shell opened to reveal the terrible thing inside. Attached to the inside of the shell was the true body of the thing. It was a reddish black, nothing more than a mass of sickening flesh. The mass contained many eyes and other sensory organs. It opened a sphincter typed orifice and shot out a serrated tongue like a toad. The tongue passed through the head of another of the young men. A bluish glow pulled out of the boy’s head when the tongue withdrew, and the kid crumpled to the ground.
I do not know why, but the shelled beast withdrew back into the ground. All of the chaos creatures withdrew. They stayed within my sight, but they moved away from our assaulters. My friends still did not return.
At my request, Tamara got in her car and drove to the nearest phone. A half hour passed before the fire truck, the deputy, and the sheriff’s car all came rushing down the gravel road. It was then that I noticed almost all of the malicious beings were gone, and some of my friends began to return. In my anger over what those jerks did to Tamara, I must have subconsciously called those monstrosities.
Could my desire for vengeance have been strong enough to call upon those horrid things?
The four uninjured young men were loaded into the back of the two patrol cars. With their masks off, I recognized the thugs. They were seniors in high school who happened to be close friends of Tamara’s oldest brother. This must have started out as a Halloween prank, but things did not go well for our attackers.
The men from the fire department called for a medical helicopter when they saw the condition of the other two bullies. One of them, the young man who took the spike to the neck, could still speak. Left paralyzed from the neck down, he fared the better of the two. The other young man never moved or spoke again. He did not react to any outside stimuli. I began to think the blue light that fang toothed scallop beast removed from the boy’s head was no less than his very mind. What hell that had to be to have your mind eaten by a phantom monster.
Medical experts concluded the two injured boys receive severe nerve damage when they were thrown through the air. They landed hard on the gravel after being thrown thirty feet. The concussive force of the exploding truck alone was sufficient to cause serious damage.
The four seniors who did walk away from the attack were charged by the district attorney. They were held responsible for the injuries their friends sustained during the malicious attack of Tamara and me. Because the two boys were injured while they were, as a group, assaulting us; the four were all charged with attempted manslaughter.
As part of their plea bargain, the four high school boys named Tamara’s oldest brother as the one who put them up to it. He even paid them for their services. Neither of us knew this until the Sheriff arrived at their house to arrest him.
Tamara and I walked across an open plain, surrounded as always by creatures both cruel and kind. We enjoyed the light fall breeze when we saw the Sheriff pull onto the long driveway. He drove up to the house and Tamara’s father met him outside. The two seemed to argue for a few minutes and finally went inside. Two or three minutes passed, and the Sheriff walked out the door with Tamara’s brother in handcuffs.
I think she knew what was going on because she did not seem overly surprised. Her brother despised the fact that Tamara and I dated. I thought about the time he threatened me if I did not stay away from his sister. He never followed through with his threat, and I always wondered why. I realized my fear and anger probably conjured something that put the fear of God into him.
Tamara’s parents would not tell us why her brother was arrested, but I think she already knew. Word did not take long to circulate through the community, and this confirmed her suspicions. It was a subject about which we would rarely ever speak.
The four boys who pled guilty only receive three-year prison sentences. Tamara’s brother pled not guilty and chose to stand trial. Their parents were torn. On one hand, their son faced a maximum of 20 years in prison. On the other hand, this was all caused because of his cruel treatment of Tamara. In the end, they decided to hire their son a good attorney.
He never made it to trial. Tamara’s brother hung himself from the bars of his cell three days before the trial began. The guilt of his actions must have been more than he could bear. Quite frankly, I do not understand how a brother could treat his baby sister with such cruel indifference. I cannot honestly say I was not glad he was gone.
One month after graduation, I asked Tamara to be my wife. I had no ring to give her. I had very little to offer her in general, but she consented to be my bride anyway. Our wedding took place one week before she and I went off to college. We were accepted to the same university. She earned an athletic scholarship while I received an academic scholarship. It cost us a little bit more, but we moved into the married dorm. An apartment in town was out of the question because our scholarships would not cover off-campus housing.
Neither of us made friends very well. Among the thousands of students attending the university, we more or less kept to ourselves. Some of the other girls on the track team started giving Tamara a hard time. She came home from practice angry almost every day. I met some of these girls at the beginning of the year and instantly sensed they were not good people. If it was not for the fact her scholarship was tied to it, she would have quit the team.
I did not see any of my normal friends for a while, but I had no trouble making more. Just as always, there were ever present beasts and daemonic creatures. Those creatures born of chaos kept their distance until Tamara’s team troubles began. They started to draw closer. It mortified me that my desire to protect my wife might end up in the deaths of even more people.
I did not know what I could possibly do to stop them. It seemed they responded to my emotions, and I could not change how I felt. I knew if I did not do something though, those mean girls would end up hurt or even dead. I tried to think good thoughts; I tried to give those young women the benefit of the doubt. All I could do was hope my thoughts were positive enough for the malicious ones to leave Tamara’s teammates alone.
When my wife returned from her last class, I had our small apartment set up for romance. Scented candles illuminated the room and a trail of flower petals led to the bedroom. Surely, I could not be negative in my head while making passionate love with Tamara. Soft jazz music played in the background as our bodies intertwined. There was no way I could think of hurting someone while spending such an intimate time with the woman I loved so dearly.
Afterwards, we held on to each other until Tamara fell gently to sleep. I went to the front room and blew out all of the candles which still burned. Most of them already burn themselves out. I picked most of the flower petals up off the floor; the rest of them I would vacuum in the morning. When I finished straightening up, I climbed back into bed, snuggled up to Tamara, and drifted off to sleep.
When we rose for class in the morning, we took a shower together and got dressed to go. We did not even make it to our first class when we heard the rumor. One of the fraternities on campus threw a large party last night. One of the young women apparently became too intoxicated and fell off the second floor balcony. Her neck snapped on impact and she died instantly. I prayed to myself it was not one of the girls pestering Tamara.
By the time I finished with my second class, I knew the dead girl was a member of the woman’s track team. No one I spoke with knew the girl’s name, but I had no doubt it was one of my wife’s tormentors. I tried. I did my best not even to think about those stuck-up young women, but it did not work. Again, because of my anger another person was dead.
I did not mean for these things to happen. Those who only I can see responded to my emotional state. Never would I be able to constantly maintain a positive attitude. People were going to anger me. Suddenly it occurred to me. Tamara and I never fought, and I never wished her any sort of ill will. That day would eventually come however, and the thought of her dying because of me was more than I could bear.
I decided I would tell her the truth tonight. She would surely think I had gone insane. How could I possibly get her to believe me that I had been able to see the inhabitants of nearby realities. Hell, I would think someone was crazy if they try to tell me such a story. I had no other choice than to tell her the truth and hope she did not walk out the door for good.
When she got home, Tamara instantly knew something was wrong. The long look on my face gave me away. My wife walked in with a smile, but now she looked like she was about to cry. She ran to my side and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“What’s wrong baby,” she pled.
I could not say anything. I did not know how to begin. How could I tell my wife I could see ghosts, and they were killing those who are a focus of my negative thoughts. Finally, I pushed her back enough to look deep into her eyes.
“Like most children, I had imaginary friends. When most kids my age grew out of that phase, I couldn’t,” I began to explain.
I thought I might see fear or confusion or hurt in her eyes when I began, but she did not seem to react.
“As I grew older, these imaginary friends did not go away,” I continued. “That boy, the bully who died from an unknown infection, one of my friends did that.”
I still did not get a reaction from her. I wished Tamara would give me a hint one way or another, but I could not read the expression on her face. We have been together for more than twelve years, and I could not tell what she was thinking.
“As I grew older, I could see more and more of them. These were no imaginary friends. Call them ghosts, aliens, or denizens of other realities. These things are real.”
Tamara continued to listen. I was afraid by now she would have thought me insane and fled our dorm room. Instead, she seemed to be looking at me with sympathy and compassion. I thought she actually believe the strange words coming out of my mouth.
“As I came to see more of their world, I began to see horrible things. I only saw friendly beings when I was a child, but now others have appeared. These new denizens of another world felt nothing but hate and chaos in their hearts,” I told her still expecting her to freak out and run.
“When I get mad, some of these entities react to my negative emotions,” I continued.
I did not know how to finish with my explanation. When I told her of the harm caused by these extra dimensional beings. How could she believe that all of those deaths were caused by creatures only I could see?
I finally finished with my explanation, and Tamara still sat there with me holding my hands in hers. The gaze in her eyes seemed more relieved than confused or scared. It was like she somehow understood everything I said. I told her the most outrageous story in the world, and she stayed right there by my side.
Tears dripping form her eyes, Tamara looked at me with intense love.
“I always feared you might find out about my gift,” she said.
“You-you can see them too?”
“Yes, but my childhood friends were not nice. There’s a reason you have seen an increase in the number of devilish beings,” Tamara explain.” They have been following me.”
I was absolutely stunned. Now I really did not know what to say. I was not responsible for those attacks with the exception of the Pinky incident. Tamara was.
“Did you tell them the hurt those people?” I asked nervously.
Now I was the one who was scared.
“No,” she replied sadly. “I never asked them to do anything. I don’t know why I attract these things, but they do what they want to do.”
I believed her. Those beings of the abyss followed her just like the others tended to congregate around me. It was nothing we chose and there was nothing we could do about it.
I never felt less alone than I did now. All these years I have carried the burden of the second sight. It turned out the girl I had a crush on in elementary school, became enamored with in junior high school, and married shortly after graduating high school possess the same ability. Perhaps that was what drew us together in the first place.
I think Tamara expected me to leave at this point, but I would never let go of her. I loved her just as much now as I did the day we married.
I leaned over and whispered into her ear, “As long as our love stands, they will never hurt me.”
“Yes,” she replied. “When it comes to people we know, or even people we don’t know, our negative emotions will cause these hideous things to act. No matter what we do, they will never leave us alone.”
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