Eyes Of The Dead
It seemed like evening, maybe later. I observed a man building some kind of structure with a roof of four sectioned, angled sides. The man was hammering away at the floor boards when the roof gave way and crashed down and almost smashed onto the man had he not rolled towards the center so he wouldn't be crushed. I got the strangest feeling that from somewhere from behind the man, someone was watching him and I could feel their eyes on him but oblivious to me.
Next I observed a woman standing next to the man. They were looking proudly on as they admired a new truck, a new boat and an old boat. For some unknown reason, with all their riches they had, they seemed obsessed about rebuilding the old, decayed boat and left the new things alone. It kept falling apart and crumbling like sod. I asked them why save something of no value when there are trees and grass all around that'll be here forever? I showed them to the wooded opening of some green place where we stood close by. A few passersby could be seen and heard from various points.
I felt the eyes again. I mentioned again, as long as these are still here, why try to save something that is rotted and dead? I laid down upon the grass and looked up at a warm blue sky with a few soft, white clouds. To my surprise I noticed that the man had laid down beside me and started to talk about how beautiful nature was. Then the woman who had been with him, walked into the woods and started to look around. The ground was smooth, as if it had been mowed. Suddenly the man had disappeared. I looked around casually and saw someone roller-blading down the grassy hills and thought it odd.
I stood and walked in the wooded area that led to some old fort. Concrete walls decayed and taken over by vines lining them and trench-like corridors in the open woods beyond. There were some kids listening to music. I recognized it. I knew the name of the song. I went to look closer and saw around ten kids between the ages of 13-18 years of age, dancing and singing. They were in one of the dug-out trenches where the sound was sharper and clearer. I smiled. They didn't seem to notice me but I sang along with them. I joined them after I felt the eyes from the woods still peering through some unknown portal. We all climbed up to the ground level of the fort and sat down while the music still played.
A familiar face smiled and came to sit next to me. She turned to me and told me that she had to be somewhere else and left. I nodded. I was still listening to the music as I got up and walked around the fort. The music blended so well and wrapped around every stone that I wondered where the music was actually coming from.
I started to walk through a part of the fort I hadn't seen before. It led to an inside hallway of some sort. I called back to the others and waved my hand. "Hey check this out!" I said. "There's some kind of hidden palace here."
The others timidly came to investigate. I went on ahead as I could still hear the music in the background. As I walked down the hall, it followed into another inside hall. Sunlight spilled into the place through white flowing curtains, billowing with the outside breeze. Rugs were spread out on the polished wooden floor, and the walls were painted white. Furniture pieces where lined up against the walls. For a moment I thought I had walked into a mansion or some kind of tourist visiting area of the fort.
I walked slowly down the hall and found a foyer, where there stood a big heavy wood table with flowers on it in the center of the room. Beyond the table I could see off to the right, a plain wooden door and about five feet from the door there was a staircase that consisted of around five stairs before it turned and continued into a dark, further staircase. More than ever, I felt the eyes staring and following my every movement. I felt they were of a dead stare because there was no form taken.
The wooden door and staircase were along the same wall. If I stood in between the door and the stairs everything became distorted so that to the right the door was closed and ominously forbidden. And to the left was the staircase. But if I went down the hall again, the door appeared open. And along the same wall. I figured I was looking at a mere reflection of something else and that it changed with movement depending on the perception of anyone in that place.
The music still played in the background. I walked into the foyer and sang along with the music. A middle-aged woman with short, curly reddish brown hair and rather heavy-set, walked into the foyer. I was a little startled but she didn't seem to pay any attention to me. What struck me as odd and unnerving was that she had come from the door on the right side of the wall. Which I had already confirmed was evil.
She seemed busy. It appeared that she was putting keys on a key-chain or something just as mundane, but the door she had emerged from was as if she had come out of some dark pit that had no floor, walls, or any light or substance whatsoever. I instinctively headed for the stairs because I knew that beyond them the fort was on the other end, as the fort wrapped around the place. That I would emerge on the outside again.
Outside would be as I imagined, sunny, warm and the sky would be blue with white clouds.
The door to the right, obviously a wrong turn.
Then the middle-aged woman looked at me. She was wearing thick eyeglasses that had a little tint in them. I could see that both her eyes were black. No color, no white, just black eyes within the sockets.
For a moment there was absolutely no sound around me. The music had grown so faint just seconds before that I figured I moved too far away from the sound or that the song simply faded out and ended too soon.
But all sound had been consumed somehow. Swallowed up by the presence of this woman. As if someone had pressed a mute button. Then the music far off in the background returned as I had kept the timing of it in my head, and it filtered back through into the strange place. I looked back at the woman's face, after looking around to see if the same hallway was still behind me. It was.
Although the woman's face seemed to be normal enough, this time even her eyes seemed normal, but still evil. I thought this was some illusion or trick. I continued walking towards the stairs, but slowly. The woman was going back and forth as if continuing her normal daily routine. I noted that she avoided the staircase and it, in turn, seemed to repel her, like a magnet against another magnet turned the wrong way. At one point she got close enough to the stairs that they forced her back a few paces without knocking her over. Like the stairs slid her feet across the floor as if she were a pawn on a chess board.
Suddenly the woman stopped and said something to me. The mute effect had happened again as I watched the animated motions of someone talking but no sound could be heard. No sound was issuing from her mouth. I stared in confusion and in a sense, smiling in relief that I could not hear her. She was obviously talking to me. Again the black eyes were present behind her thick glasses.
Like onyx beads, almost glistening with wrath in the room that was bathed in sunlight from the outside through the windows in the hallway behind. Where she stood, the room was cast in shadow and gloom. A heavy and oppressing air seemed to hover her. I peered straight into her black eyes and though I could hear absolutely no sound coming from her, I could faintly hear the music behind me. I held my gaze and then yawned. Inside I was laughing.
I checked to make sure she hadn't motioned or moved in a threatening way towards me. Her index finger held up, as if scolding me. I was supposed to fear her. But I did not. It seemed her dead eyes had a will to do me harm but was more afraid for herself. Her eyes grew darker. I cast her out of the hallway. She looked at me as if mocking, and in disbelief. Then her face grew into a scowl and her eyes deeper in black. Then her eyes shriveled and finally fell into the depth of an empty skull. She and her deathly eyes were no more. And no sign of any corpse. I harnessed the power of the stairs and the fort.
And the music played on.
October 5, 1999
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