The coming

The coming
Exploration of Fear


She was sitting on the rusty chair in the middle of the kitchen waiting for the fatidic ending. The night had a cold death color; cold like the coffee that was reflecting her pale face. Her body was shaking and the anguish was trying to escape through each one of her pores. She could hear a distant thunder. It was like a presage of the tragedy ready to happen. The chilly rain was approaching like the prophecy, inevitable.
The father was watching her from a corner of the kitchen, motionless on his old wheelchair. He seemed worried knowing that the calamity was imminent. He could hear the sound of her heart pounding like an untamable drum, he saw her lost look crowned by her disarranged hair pose on his face, and the look was pleading for help in silence. A thousand words could have been guessed if that frown of desperation wasn’t silent. The father too was a victim of the anguished times that were ruling the house since Elliot left. The father had an emaciated face, full of highways built by the merciless time. The same time that now was running out making eternity a little bit shorter.

He woke up early in the misty morning knowing this would be the day to venture upon his mission between the gust of spring and the lashes of the cold.

Elliot left the city at dusk one day previous to the fatidic ending. He saw all the lights spread across the dark horizon. The endless parade of lights started to fade away when he remembered his guilty fate. Then the tears washed away the lights as he felt the cold window in his forehead. The sadness was crushing him but the anger was the savior, the only thing that kept him alive. The feeling of revenge or at least of making sure that the uncertainty of the nightmare was over was his daily nourishment. The darkness of the road gave him an unconscious shelter; he felt that he could hide in the blackness of the mountain that he was crossing; a black forest that climbed the mountain eating the soil and sheltering all kinds of nocturnal animals. He wanted to get lost with them in order to avoid the hideous destiny that awaited him.

Her mother was praying in the bathroom, doors locked and trembling without control. A picture on the pallid blue wall, a picture of a devilish creature surrounded by dark shadows made with dark colours reminded her of the prophecy and made her heart shudder, as if some one had put up the tiny picture to torture the minds of the inhabitants of the beaten house built in the middle of the lugubrious mountains of an unknown region. She prayed with a wooden Jesus chained to her hands, her tears were wetting the tiles, sliding through the cracks of the aligned floor. The mixture of cries and prayers escaped through the small broken window to reach the dark forest of the remote territory; as a hint for the follower. They were like caged animals waiting for a precise hunter.

On the mountainous serpentine road the bus struggled to reach the top parts of the peaks. Elliot was submerged in his thoughts. Why can’t a man live happily ever after with the love of his life? Why does there always have to be something dreadful in the way of his happiness? Why him? Why did he have to pay that price? His eyes were injected with a strange combination of rage and delusion, anger and disappointment. The owls were having their feast with small rodents; the crows were giving a concert with distorted croaks; the skunks were perfuming the atmosphere with their warnings; and the hollow trees making the wind whistle. Everything was in perfect harmony with the humid weather that breaks and enters into your bones. He had a bad feeling and a shiver when he thought of the depths of the dark forest. The moon full at its maximum capacity was peeping through the dense clouds barely lighting anything. He knew he had the worst task of all the human beings.

The cold wet leaves under his naked feet, he felt like he was in a dream approaching rapidly to his goal, feeling the branches caressing his face as he ran through the perilous paths of the enchanted hills.

She knew it was useless to escape, it would only prolong her agony, an agony that wasn’t painful physically but it was mentally draining. The smell of her father’s tobacco made her vomit near the stove, crying while leaning on a drossy piece of furniture. She was close to having a nervous breakdown but stood still like an Indian warrior looking at her wrinkled father with a stare - like asking for forgiveness and asking for strength. A wolf howled in the haunted woods warning their fellow pack members that something gruesome was about to happen. The feeling in the air made all the inhabitants of the region distrustful of every square meter of their surroundings. Everybody in the house startled and the cold sweat provided an unnecessary punishment for them. The cold coffee was disturbed by a lonely tear that provoked a brown wave that distorted the reflection of a frightened face.

He finally arrived to the smallest bus station that consisted in a dumpy coffee shop of 2 tables and an old ticket dispenser. He had dreamed that he was rushing through the woods falling into the traps of the evil muddy puddles. He woke up just in time and was the only passenger to disembark on that remote location; he knew he still had to walk a fair amount of distance before he could reach the house. He also knew it was going to be a boisterous and painful trek where his worst enemy would be the remorse rather the dreadful climate conditions and the uneasy inhabitants of the area. Even the moon was still hidden behind the theatrical scenery provided by the stormy clouds. He felt the steel in his pocket to reassure himself that everything was going to be alright even though he knew he was marked for eternity for his crime. A thunder on his back made him go further beyond his capacity with the adrenaline as a copilot. He left Fear at the lonely station.

He saw the rustic house barely light by some candles. He could see his breath rising up in the air in the form of a cloud of agitation as he felt a familiar rush in his exalted body.

The mother saw death in the form of a shadow; she panicked in a fetal position in the corner of the bath. Then it was calm. Then the broken window was destroyed and her crying got louder. In the kitchen the faces sobbed with an indescribable frown, unable to see each other anymore. It was death row between pans and perishable food. The mother was terrified when she had the courage to open her eyes and see the man that was about to exterminate her. She received a couple of blows before she was strangled. She was losing consciousness when she felt something penetrating her stomach and the deep pain told her that she was close to be relief of her suffering. The wooden Jesus was hanging, crying for a lost soul. The door slammed wide open, punishing the wall. The father just looked to his insensitive legs waiting for the final blow; he muttered a very brief prayer and death fell upon him in the form of a blade that silted his throat. The woman screamed Elliot with all her lungs and collapsed on the kitchen floor as a huge shadow cast upon her the deadly spell.

He enjoyed the smell of blood and the fresh taste of human meat. He drank some of the vital liquid like honoring his victims like any respectful hunter.

When he arrived to the house only a tenuous light from a dying candle lit the interior. He came with his weapon ready for the fight. But it was too late. The horrid spectacle that his eyes saw is beyond any description. His mind was pierced forever, tattooed with a macabre memory. He saw some creatures picking on his lover’s open body. With blood in their mouths and pieces of intestines hanging out they fled the scene when Elliot screamed. He knew it was going to happen. He thought he could fool pure evil. He had exchanged the knowledge of black magic for something precious. He thought it could be his miserable soul. So he learned the craft of witches and became powerful. But he never contemplated falling in love with a gypsy. He never contemplated that she was going to become his most precious possession that day that they made love under the stars. He tried to hide away when he realized the danger she was in and asked her for forgiveness, and then he tried to fool the devil. He explained everything to her and love forgave but not the devil that appeared one day in a cauldron of flames merciless and impossible to cheat. Elliot rushed to try to stop the massacre and the damnation of his lover’s soul only to find her open body and two corpses of her beloved parents that were not more than a couple of dismembered peasants.

The beast with his deformed face and humongous body wandered in the black forest waiting for the next victim from his master, still tasting the iron of the blood in his mouth. Waiting for the next human that hungry for the black knowledge is capable of dealing with Beelzebub who punishes taking forever the love out of their lives and then they have to roam knowing that they have condemned the soul of the love one to the most rotten creature and his acolytes.


OSWALDO PEREZ CABRERA