Zach screamed. For the first time in thirty-six years, he screamed the air out of his lungs.
‘Stop being a baby,’ the apparition said, his voice sounding like tar, effectively silencing the petrified man. Zach was staring at a nightmare. And the nightmare was staring back at him. That thing had his wife in captivity. But he felt so helpless. So he did what helpless people in movies did: he asked pointless questions.
‘Who are you? What do you want with us? What are you doing here?’
The thing laughed. That thing laughed! To Zach, it sounded like the burning of dry grass. He could not shake off the sense of dread that hovered all over the small toolshed. Then it spoke: ‘Your sins have caught up with you, man. You thought no one would know the atrocities you committed before you arrived here? You thought you had gotten rid of the problem by burning Dale? Well, boo! Here I stand, in the flesh, coming for what is mine.’ With that, he turned around to face Cathy, whose eyes were so wide open they could pop out of their sockets at any time.
‘She is not yours, man. You know it. Deep down she has always loved me. Deep down she has always wanted me. She believed I was dead, man. Come on, can we understand that at least?’ Zach tried rather lamely. He wasn’t going anywhere with this, he knew. He was only delaying the inevitable – their deaths.
‘No!’ It screeched. ‘She loves me. She mentions my name in her sleep. I hear her every night. You,’ he continued, turning again to Zach, ‘are the impediment between her and me. You should have stayed dead, soldier. We all would have been happier… but you chose to ruin everything by coming back and trying to kill me! See how quietly she lies in wait.’
Zach was losing the battle. ‘Okay. I give up.’ He glanced at Cathy who was doing her best to stay put yet communicate with her eyes. She was bewildered and helpless. And she couldn’t understand just why Zach was giving up on her – on them – when she needed him the most. She just closed her eyes in surrender – if Zach had given up, what more choice did she have?
‘No, you don’t. Don’t move. She must see you go down first. Then, I can take her away to where she truly belongs, where she wants to be. With me!’
Zach simply stared as the horrible figure moved towards him. He looked at Cathy for what he believed was the last time and whispered his love to her. Tears were flowing freely down his face. He never thought he would be humiliated this way by a defeated foe. Yet here he was. He couldn’t even defend his own wife. But he was not going to go down without a fight. At the very least, a soldier’s honour was in dying in combat, not being killed like a domestic chicken.
As the phantom moved towards Zach, the latter gathered momentum. When he was a few feet away, Zach rammed his head straight into him, not caring about the thorns and nails that had been strewn along the workbench. The force sent both of them reeling across the floor into some of the tools in the shed. Zach began to throw punches blindly, feeling soreness in his knuckles but not hitting any being, only for Zach to discover he had been punching air. His adversary was still where he stood.
‘I could watch you do this all day, mister. But I do not have time.’
Zach couldn’t believe his eyes. What was he dealing with? How could he defeat smoke? Then, from the corner of his eye he saw Cathy trying to move. At the same time, the apparition had taken hold of his throat. Somehow, he was being choked by the smoke. The acrid smell entered his nose, and no matter how hard he tried not to, he inhaled it. The more he inhaled, the more he had difficulty breathing. His eyes began to water and bulge, his arms flailed, grasping at nothing at all. The black apparition was clouding his vision. He was losing consciousness and he fought to stay awake, at least for the love of his life. He could not keep his eyes open, but his ears worked still, and he could hear tiny movement. As if in a movie, he felt his lungs begin to collapse. He coughed frantically, trying to get some of the smoke out but inhaling more instead. He felt blood rushing through his ears and eyes. Was he dying? Who would save Cathy now?
As he collapsed onto the floor, he heard the crash, then the muffled cry, then the screeching wail, then silence, then the darkness. The end had finally come.
EPILOGUE
No one in the vicinity can explain what happened in that toolshed, even till date. The gruesome sight they beheld when they finally came to the site cannot be inked. However, they could never get over the smoky pile of rubble and the acrid smell of burnt offering while none of the victims had suffered any burns.
Neighbours found two bodies, one bound and pierced due to where she landed, and the other totally asphyxiated with dark smoke emanating from his nostrils. They all could not bring themselves to stay in the vicinity for long, and they all resolved they could not live in that house. Together, they brought the small house down and pushed the pile together.
Neighbours have claimed to have heard screeching wails and seen a hovering smoky image over the piles. Perhaps, some dead will never rest in peace.
THE END.
