My Demonic Ghost Book two (The Reapers 2) Read online

  Copyright for Jacinta Maree 2014

  Cover Design by Catherine Nodet

  www.catherine-nodet.fr

  Edited by Karen Reckard and

  Heather Savage

  Staccato Publishing

  Maple Grove, MN

  AUS Edition: April 2015

  ISBN-13:

  978-1511707084

  ISBN-10:

  1511707089

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Printed in Australia

  The Reapers

  By Jacinta Maree

  Book two

  Chapter One:

  In my final moments I did not feel fear. Why could I be scared of falling asleep? Pressure held my chest in cold, clamp fingers, making every breath squeeze through millimetre holes. The dirt grumbled under my body. My back was throbbing with deep, penetrating pulses as if my heart had fallen to the base of my spine. The blood ran bright till it washed over my neck and into the murky earth, building heavier with the pooling rain. A bleak sky was overcast with a narrowing black veil, spiralling inwards to the centre of my vision. The darkness twisted in its hazy blur, closing rapidly till the rain that fell against my cheeks stopped striking me.

  A world of colour washed to the left, dragging the grey clouds sideways like paint running down the edge of a tipping bowl. The pain broke into cold shivers that eventually drew downwards to a numbing ache. The panic that was setting fire to my nerves fizzled out as the rain falling on me was blanketing the flames. There was no last plea. There was no blinding light leading me down a stretch towards a waiting heaven. The fight to breath vanished and the drowsy spell of death pulled my eyes to a close…

  The pain vanished. The world vanished…

  Then I woke and everything changed....

  That was for certain. That was the only thing I was certain of. Every second I sat I was washed over with a tranquil presence, stealing all that loved, hated, burned and feared. There was a sense of detachment like I’m a string of bodiless thoughts. Whatever human had been dripped clean and dumped back in the dirt with the rest of the living world. I was human once, just moments ago, but not anymore. More time tickled by till everything I was had been chipped away. Each flake of life and identity broke and scattered until I was nothing but a vacant breath lost in death.

  There’s a wall that I’m stuck behind, a dark veil drawn room that could cage smoke. That’s exactly what I was now, a fat cloud of air. I’m weary that I’ll start to break apart and disperse around the globe. The more I seemed to float apart the harder it was to put thoughts into my head. I had to mentally hold on to myself, trying not to let my presence spread so thin that I disappeared. Whatever thing I was I knew one thing for sure. I am dead.

  A passing ripple rolled over me and dragged my broken body along with it. It pulled me back then forwards, back then forwards. All the time I had invisible arms strapping my body in. So this was the afterlife… even though I am here I still feel clueless.

  Was I suspended in vacant air? Was gravity non-existent in this realm? Or was I under water, moving when the waves moved? The illusion of a body kept my mind abuzz, tricking me into thinking I had skin that felt movement and I had limbs that were slipping away.

  Apart of me knew that if I let go of this mental strain, I would not scatter like escaping fog, but I didn’t dare let my grip loosen even for a second. I kept rocking back and forwards. The current was unsettled. I was in a ball, a type of sphere cacoon and I was pressed against the curved walls. With non-existent ears I could hear something curl around the back corner of the globe. How do I know what type of space I am in? How do I know that I’m not just tumbling through an endless void? There was something else in the darkness with me; the movement of its every breath was what was rocking my body back and forth. In and out.

  The creature was large. Beastly. Hungry. Stalking me through the shadows and breathing me in with every inhale. I couldn’t see it but I could sense its hunching large shoulders, its thick turned in skull. A picture of silver eyes raced across my thoughts, only for a second. A smudge of moonlight against a night sky, breaking through the clouds.

  Before I had become just a thought pressing against a bubble, I must’ve been something more. Someone else who knew what moonlight looked like. There was a tickle that was lounging on my tongue, pushed against the roof of my imaginary mouth. A word? A memory?

  I felt my self-strain to touch the glass around me but I felt no barrier at the end of my stretch. A picture of a pair of small hands moved below and I could see the bones roll under young skin. A young boy’s hands; maybe only ten. No nine, no he was eight.

  He sped his fingers across a set of keys. They were nimble and fast, and as he played his tiny body rocked back and forward as if the notes were bursting to get out. I watched as if sitting in his eyes, following the line of focus down to the piano beneath. Inside his sight there was a spinning motion that spun itself out into a vacant silence. It was harmonious to sit above the piano, the boy’s blazer suit too tight against his arms that he strained to hit the far keys on the end of the piano. Sweat felt like glue and failure. Behind him, there was absolute silence; the music he knocked out expanded into the space behind. I floated away from the boy till I was stretched out above, able to watch with a bird’s eye view.

  The boy looked about eight and with his shoulder blades pinched into the muscles of his back. It felt like the whole world was watching his bowed head, the presence of their attention seemed to tighten his joints. He was sweating under the spot light like it was naked fire held to his skin. The music was flawless, simple and slow but not a single note felt out of place. And when the lights went up and all the faces were dotted out in the room, the boy still felt as small as a sand grain. They applauded but he couldn’t bear to keep eye contact with any of them. He stood in a suit of his own sweat, embarrassed with himself.

  The colours ran away from me as I felt the roaming creature snort. It was towering over me now, digging its nostrils into the pit of my stomach. The boy was me. I could sense the burn of familiarity as it bubbled over my insides. I was sure he was me. He had to be. Otherwise whose memories was I snipping at? Even so, I was a spectator to his life, watching everything for the first time. Maybe I just wanted a sense of identity in this non-identifying gloom?

  Invisible strings moved around as I tried to pull a memory out of the dark smoke. What else did this boy have? Who was he? The tickle started to itch as I sneezed out a cluster of letters. It sprayed out in front of me before it hung like tinsel on hooks. Jordon.

  His name… no my name was Jordon. I clung to the word as if it would smash underneath me if I didn’t. Jordon. The letters burnt the darkness with fiery gold, staining it forever.

  Connected to the name was a thin weave. I stretched it out like unravelling a strip of film from a cassette. The film kept going and going into distorted snaps and pictures till I hit a frame that created that same sense of familiarity. I pulled the picture closer and dunked my head in to watch.

  It was raining hard that day mum left. All the lights were out and the world was as black as midnight sky despite being only 4:00. Two little boys were bolting from the kitchen, following the sound of a slamming door. One kid was Jordon, just younger. And beside him was a child of about the age of two. The name Nathan sprung upwards like I had called his name a million times before. The boys looked alike except Nathan had a soft red glint amongst his brown hair.

  They raced up to the lounge room window and looked out on the tip of their toes. The woman was just a black blur
behind watery glass. I sat in Jordon’s mind like an intruder, watching through his brown eyes and listening to the memories and thoughts that danced around his head. He remembered she looked over her shoulder and waved at them, even if Nathan sworn she didn’t. In his story she ran out as if the house was on fire. But he was too little back then and his memory was distorted by his unresolved hatred. He felt abandoned whereas Jordon saw her as doing the best thing she could for herself, she was escaping. A very mature thought for a boy so young. The red umbrella was a vibrant smudge against the smoky sky. It snapped shut and she disappeared into the waiting cab.

  And then she was gone. I wish he had a better last memory of her, but that woman was not to be seen again no matter how far I stretched the film.

  I was lounging on my back now, I think, and the creature had stepped away from me. It hadn’t left the room. It clung to the walls above my head and watched, dangling like a spider. I felt the brush of its exhale pierce right through me, breaking me apart. Time felt as relevant in this dome as sunlight felt to creatures that lived on the bottom of the ocean. I tried to shrink away from it but my formless presence sat still like tipped over oatmeal. With the word Jordon and Nathan still fresh in my grasp, I started to tweak my thoughts and pull memories out like rabbits out of a magic hat.

  I returned back to the image of eight year old Jordon, back at his piano recital. He collected his papers, bowed at the waist and walked off stage into the curtains. His teacher was there and she patted his back, leaning down to kiss his cheek and give him a tight hug.

  The young boy met up with his father outside the building afterwards. He was busy smoking and talking into his cell phone, facing away from the warm overspill of the reception inside. The air was so cold that it carried white flakes on its back. The touch of winter was bleak, mysterious and distant. It suited the man as if he could only bloom amongst the cold white. His black long trench coat planted him into the ground like a tree. He ruffled Jordon’s hair and hailed a cab. He was tall built with a head full of thick brown hair. He’s shadow was stretched out like a long giant in front of them both. He looked too big to be a human, but maybe I was just looking at him the way a young boy looks at his father. Raymond. He was called Raymond Hastings.

  The two had a relationship based on achievements. Raymond would come to Jordon only when report cards were despatched or ceremonies were given in his honour. Jordon wanted his approval more than Raymond deserved. By grade four Jordon was victorious in 3 different spelling bees. By grade six he was a part of the specialist maths division. Primary school he was learning at high school level and high school he was taking university tests. Nathan had to get attention the old fashioned way by rebelling. It built from time outs to detentions to suspensions. Thankfully it never reached into criminal offences, but Nathan’s pranks were building with danger the older he got.

  Nathan never wore a badge of gold only a lease and bruises. At seventeen Jordon’s sudden change in behaviour threw him off course from the honour role. He snapped and stopped fighting for his father’s affection and slowly Nathan did too. It probably was the thing that saved Nathan from delivering himself into a jail cell.

  The film ran short before whipping out of my grasp, retreating like a tail. I tried to follow it but I was chasing something invisible and impossible to catch. Jordon’s young face sat like a beacon of light in a world of dark. His eyes were brown and his skin a soft tan, mingled nicely with the cinnamon brown hair on top. He had a symmetric face and thick black lashes framed like thorns and thick eyebrows above each eye. Even if I wanted to push the face into talking, into showing expression it was like willing silver to turn into gold.

  How much longer did I wait in a globe of shadow and stillness? I could feel that time was passing but it barely sparked a worry inside me. Was this what my existence had withered down to? A subconscious chasing the memories of a boy named Jordon Hastings?

  Sleep must’ve consumed me as I jolted upwards as if abruptly woken. The creature was breathing on my neck. Its breath had no smell or temperature, just a moving touch that brushed against me. Alerted now to its presence, there was a building tension that pinched from the corners of my eyes and overtook the dry darkness in front of me. Despite being an object without a body, I still trembled as if I could feel pain. The beast watching was an omen, put into my cell to torment me for the rest of eternity.

  Raymond didn’t show any remorse or distress at her departure. He locked himself up in the office for hours till the skies rained black, doing what he was programmed to do, which was to work. Nathan and Jordon had a theory that their father was a robot sent by the Government to spy on them. Jordon still believed that myth till he turned the age of thirteen. His father had been walking up the driveway where he accidently slipped on some loose gravel and ripped a hole right through his work pants. There was a blood stain of deep red dyed through his clothes and he swore so loudly that Jordon jumped at the cursive words.

  After his mother had left, that’s when Ange and her new baby started to show up. Ange was first their babysitter, but she quickly turned into Raymond’s girlfriend then fiancé then wife. She was a really beautiful young woman, at least 20 years younger than their father. She was slim and clean and perfect in every way, shape and form. Her hair was long with loose soft curls. Her face was in a shape of a heart with two large apple green eyes.

  Jordon was five when she moved in with the rest of the Hasting family, Nathan was three and she had a new born. He looked like a naked, bloated frog and would scream and cry in a tiny voice that strained from its constant wailing. Ange wouldn’t dare stay in the house with him when Ray was home, even at the slightest of sounds she would scoop the baby up and vanish for a few hours.

  If Ray wasn’t home she’ll let him cry until Nathan or Jordon would be forced to shut him up. He was a squawking thing; bundled up in thick white nappies and his face a constant bright pink. They were so cruel to him. Nathan covered the baby in honey and left him outside for the ants to feed. Jordon tried to lick postal stamps to his forehead, but they never stayed on long enough to get him to the mail box.

  What felt like an expanding balloon started to inflate in my chest, guilt perhaps? Young Jordon watched down on the screaming infant with the cloudy judgment of a child. He saw one thing only which was to dispose of the boy and not even consider what harm or stress it’ll cause others.

  Uncaring. Unloved. Hated. Even at a young age the boys knew the baby wasn’t a part of their family. It must’ve been because Raymond never included him in with their competitions, like he was some estranged guest who got to watch. Ange would spend endless amount of time with her only child once he grew up a bit, usually knitting or doing other girly things like house work and cooking with his hand always clinging to her apron. I was surprised he didn’t grow up in a dress.

  Forcibly I pulled my head away from the image and let the memory sit on pause in front. The sight of the infant, it was triggering connections I had thought I had lost when slipping into death. The creature behind me went rigid at my awakening, almost as if it too could feel the string of emotions that flooded me.

  The beast moved closer, so close I could vaguely see its silver eyes behind the sheet of the memory. It was watching me in anticipation. As I caught sight of it a smile grew of uneven teeth protruding awkwardly out of a bed of black gum. Smiling or snarling? The beast looked like no friend to me.

  The memory kicked onwards and the monster vanished behind the moving clip. When the baby grew older, he started to push back at them and bite. Jordon stopped calling him the baby when he hit two years old.

  There were more memories of their time together than anything else. It started when the boy first learnt how to ride a bike and ended up in the neighbours bushes. Jordon laughed so hard that he cried, watching as the young child scrambled to untangle himself. Jordon guided the boy through the park, pointing out different plants and bugs as the youngest brother hastily took notes in his notepad. Birthdays
and Christmas’ and Easters all spent side by side. Nathan barely appeared in Jordon’s childhood memories, only during forced family outings or sibling feuds. It was the young one that shone brightly, he was important. He was a perfect replica of his mum. A slim boy with a head of matted toast brown, straight till the tips where it kick outwards unruly. His eyes were large with a pinch of mint green, framed by black lashes and skin of soft bronze. He wasn’t as tanned as the other two, but no one would call his skin white either. The boy’s name was… it was…?

  I felt a jolt of pain, running like a fever across my invisible forehead. I was probably nothing more than a dark cloud, a floating conscience, but I still built a body around me. What was the boy’s name?

  I let his image slip as failure hurt more than fighting to hold his memory.

  I didn’t search for anything more. The stress and weight of Jordon’s world felt too alien to be a part of who I am now. Even though I didn’t look for it, the images kept un-bottling in front of me. Taking up everything like a wide projector screen and I had nowhere to look but at it.

  Despite the tedious hours in front of the piano, moving his fingers up and down the keys hitting every cord, he really loved to play. He was good. It felt natural.

  And people often sat down and watched, bringing everyone together even if it was only for a moment. Though Jordon’s family life had as many cracks as a shattered mirror he was always surrounded by loyal friends. Anita Harley was his kindergarten friend. She had grown up with a flute in her hands as he had grown with a piano under his fingers. And his best friend Mark Cheng who first met Jordon by challenging him to a tournament of handstands in grade two.

  It wasn’t till he entered into grade 4 that he noticed Anita’s pretty eyes. Her big smile touched pink in her cheeks and her straight blonde hair bounced sunlight off her head. Jordon grew with a pounding heart for her. She was the ear that listened to him at night and the competitor who drove him towards achievement.