The Terror From Beyond

By Ernest Polmateer

It came at the same time every night … Gabe waited for it, bottle in hand, but it never helped.

 

Whatever it was, it all started when he came home … every night filled with mind numbing visions of some hellish monster he could never fully comprehend.

 

The shrinks told him the problem was PTSD. That was the cause of his drinking problem.

 

He almost believed them … until today.

 

What he saw made his blood run cold … his leg muscles quivered. The damn thing was actually watching him all the time!

 

This was more of a metaphysical nightmare than a real enemy.

 

How in the hell was he going to fight this thing?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ernest Polmateer
• Release date: Dec 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386590774

Book preview

Unseen Presence

––––––––

He awoke to find he had not made it to the bed again last night. Pushing himself up off of the kitchen table, he groaned and rubbed his face. Another morning headache from too much bourbon.

Apparently the coffee maker had triggered him to wake up. Funny, but he did not remember setting it last night.

As he got up to find a clean cup, he realized he was soaking wet again as well. More dreams, he thought.

By the time he got to the second cup of coffee, he was beginning to feel more human, but he had a long way to go. He set his cup on the bathroom counter and dropped his sodden clothes and turned on the shower.

As the hot water hit him, the memories came back again. They always came back when he took a shower for some silly reason.

From the hole they had dove into, they could hear the artillery shells coming down all around them. They had walked right into a trap and had to call in supporting fire. Arn had found this depression that turned out to be the entrance to some kind of hole in the ground.

Right now three of them were huddled next to the opening, while the fourth member of the group, Jake, had taken out his flashlight and was exploring the far end.

Jake, be careful. You have no idea what kind of booby trap might be in here, Gabe called out to him.

Don't worry. I'm just looking. he replied.

That's what I am afraid of, Gabe retorted.

Just then Josh called out; Jake, don't open that. You don't know what's in there.

Gabe heard something sliding and turned to see what Jake was doing. Josh had called out too late, for Jake had the top sliding off some kind of stone box. As he started to say something, he heard the sound of something moving.

It sounded like a thousand feet moving on stone. He was about to reprimand Jake, but was interrupted by a sound of metal on metal screeching. Then there was silence. Even the artillery barrage had ceased.

Gabe looked at Arn and Josh, and could see them staring back at him. He did not have to ask them if they had heard it too.

Just then a voice came down from outside. Get your butts out of the hole before you get buried in there. We've got to move.

Gabe was sitting in the same uncomfortable chair, listening to his VA shrink.

Mr. Watson, if you keep on getting worse, I'm going to have to recommend you come in for an extended stay, so we can do some testing on you. There has to be something chemically wrong. There is nothing following you and nothing is watching you. You are suffering from delusions triggered by your time in a war zone.

There was no way Gabe was going to let this doctor put him in a padded cell, while the machinery of the VA forgot about him. OK, doc. Maybe this new medicine will do the trick.

I certainly hope so, as that is about the last straw. There is nothing else I can do for you as an out patient, he concluded.

The doctor stood up and Gabe followed suit. Let me see how this works and I'll let you know how I am doing, Gabe offered.

It should have been one of those typical Texas hot dry summer days, but unfortunately it had rained the night before and the air was so humid you could see steam coming up from the road. The temperature must be over ninety already. Within moments of coming out of the house, he could feel his shirt clinging to him.

Thankfully he did not have much planned for outside activities and thought he would run the bills out to the mail box before it got really hot. The weather girl said they were expecting it to break way over a hundred today.

As he turned to head back up the driveway, he wiped sweat out of his eyes and as he took a step towards the house he froze in his tracks.

All those days of treatment for PTSD and the experimental drugs used came back in a flood of memories.

So too did the scenes from Iraq and losing friends flash through his mind again. The dusty smell of the hole they found to get out of the heat, and the feelings of dread, while crammed inside. The sound he heard when one of his friends moved the lid off of a stone sarcophagus and the chill that went through his body. That chill was running through his backbone at this very moment in such intensity that it actually caused pain.

He remembered the bored look on the doctor's face when he told him about being watched by someone or something he could not see. After being in a combat situation for any length of time, you feel things like that. You can't explain them, but you know when someone is watching you or you're walking into an ambush.

He had begun to think that perhaps his feelings were wrong or confused and all those things the doctors had been telling him this past year were the real truth, but now he knew.

Hoping he had not been noticed hesitating for a brief instant in time, he continued that walk, back to the house, attempting nonchalance, but not sure if he was successful or not. He walked right by the now drying puddle on the concrete showing his foot prints going in the direction of the mail box and the other, second set of oddly shaped footprints, along side of his.

He could not help being startled when he heard that damn sound again. The sound of a thousand feet on stone. So, too did he turn and look when he heard the metal on metal screeching sound. He thought for an instant there might have been a car wreck down the road, but there was nothing there.

Now realizing that all those things he had felt were true was a lot more frightening than some medical or psychological issue. Though he had some idea of how to help himself and had a lot of specialists out there waiting to help him as well, this was something entirely unknown, but real, and he had no idea how he was going to fight this thing.

Whatever it was, it was not the slightest bit friendly. His instincts told him that as well as some of the things that had happened since he got back home. This thing was after him, but seemed to be teasing him or toying with him for some reason. There was no doubt in his mind that this thing sought to kill him.

This was a totally new situation now. He knew it was out to get him, but there was nothing for him to go on as to how to defend himself, let alone drive this thing away, if that were even possible.

After entering the house he pretended to go about daily chores. Thankfully he was a lousy housekeeper, so there were plenty of things for him to keep busy with. He did not want whatever this was to know he was aware of it. Somehow he got the impression that it thought it was being stealthy. He was not about to educate it any more than he had to.

It was surprising that it came this late in the morning. It had always come in the evenings before and left long before dawn. Then again he had not sensed its presence in quite a few weeks, so perhaps something had changed.

Every so often he got a whiff of a fetid smelling breeze, exactly like what he smelled in that hole he and his friends were in that day.