The Ballarag's Imagination Rush

By Bongani Prince Zwane

The Ballarag's Imagination Rush is a horror novel about a creature called the Ballarag which terrorizes 4 people of a small town it proclaims "special ones" as they are aware of its existence and can solidify their imagination to an extent. The Ballarag releases all sorts of horrid tricks to get the "special ones" to lead it to a gate only they

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9789360499587

Book preview

Chapter 1

D

eath, with his scythe on his bony, clenched fists with a firm grip, with his cloak that dragged on the ground. He stared in one direction, his crimson eyes not blinking. He was like a statue. One foot stuck out from the cloak, the skeletal foot missed its little toe to the middle phalanx. He had his talus still attached. An action figure.

The action figure of the Grim Reaper had critical details, kids don't care about the cartilages or the name of the bones making up their toes, and kids definitely would have a plastic scythe, not one made of a real, stainless blade. But then again, how many kids would play with an action figure of a being that would some day smite them?

Peridot would, and Peridot was not a child, he was a teenage boy. And Peridot wasn't even his legal name, Linda Shaka was his government name. He adopted the name and Death would salute him with it.

Peridot wore blue overalls with one strap over the shoulder, he wore yellow moc toe boots. A sleeveless black shirt with red patterns underneath the overalls, but he did not buy the shirt without sleeves, and it was easy to distinguish, the sleeves were ripped off but left marks on the shoulders of the shirt. He had thick, but short dreads that he had dyed khaki.

His yellow utility belt that was supposed to be held around his waist was missing, though if it were here, it would suppose to resemble Batman's utility belt.

The Grim Reaper's creepy action figure was placed on a table, with Peridot's chin resting on his crossed hands against the edge of the table. He intently stared at the action figure, as if he were studying it or waiting for it to talk to him. Like we used to do when we were alone with our pets and hoped they'd trust us enough to reveal to us that they can talk, motivated by the dogs and cats' movies. Peridot analyzed Death, focusing on the little details, too. The only sound you could hear in the room was the soft sound of his exhale-inhale, if you stood near him. He heard footsteps behind the wall, trotting toward his door, his eyes shifted from Death and followed the sound to the door. He closed his eyes, waiting for the door to open.

He breathed out a heavy, irritated sigh. The person behind the door hesitated, he could hear them breathing on the wooden door. After a while of anticipating, the person gave up and the footsteps moved away from the door.

After packing Death and his Japanese anime characters' action figures in a duffel bag and stashing them under his bed, he exited the room to go take a bath. He lay in the bath tub, staring at the ceiling with his ears submerged. He kept his breathing moderate. Without taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes let the water devour him.

While under water, he could hear indistinct voices of people arguing coming from behind the locked door, but he had spent so much time inside his mind that it wouldn't be the first time he hears disembodied whispers. Over time, the voices stopped. He must have been there for a while.

He emerged from under the water and tried not to breathe heavily for air as homeostasis took place, succeeding in doing so pleased him, a reward smile was shaped on his face. He had done it. He wiped his face. The angular corners of his lips were something he hardly displayed, he was like an awkward robot trying to learn how to smile.

A smile was something he never blessed his loved ones or anyone with, it was on rare occasions that you'd see him smile. He rested his head and closed his eyes, hopefully not given confidence by the time he spent underwater to fall asleep in a bath tub.

The footsteps continued behind the door and in the other rooms of the house, there were multiple footsteps and muffled voices. This did not bother or shake Peridot.

The black glovelettes and dark blue polished nails made her fair skin appear as though it were glowing. She sprayed in an X motion with a spray paint, pressing so hard on the valve that it spurt out the red paint until it started dripping down the wall.

Her headphones were blasting at full volume, the artist in the song was screaming at the top of his lungs, his words weren't audible but that's how Sharon Bellows loved it. The pchhhhht sound of the spray paint screamed, as if to imitate the musician.

She was a huge fan of all music that let out aggression and damaged your eardrum. Also quite a prankster, she could recall years back when her parents took her to church against her own will. She took revenge on them by sneaking onto the DJ's deck when he was busy checking out one of the church girls who was batting her eyes at him.

Sharon had brought with her a small compact disc with the words 'WHERE DO WE GO?' written in a slanted font. She took out the gospel CD for the chosen songs for the church choir and cast it to the floor, inserted the CD and whisked back to her chair before anyone could see her.

When it was time for the church choir to sing, the DJ played the one track he saw on his playlist. There was a faint ting, as the choir instructor waited for the intro, another bell rang and Billie Eilish sang her 'All the good girls go to hell ' song. Leaving the congregation appalled and filled with indignation, their righteous anger.

You should've seen Pastor Johnson tackle the DJ's deck, the 70 year-old man had been given the power of a football player for that one purpose. This was a sidesplitter for Sharon.

She shook the spray bottle, smiling to the memory of that day. Now she had moved from the X motion and now spraying in an upward motion. One of the fast passing cars behind her on the road had a 2 year old child strapped in the backseat. She was partly bald — The soft follicles were only starting to spread across her head.

She had a pacifier in her mouth, waving a teddy bear up and down in a frenzy manner until she saw through the window Sharon's painting on the wall. She became relaxed and her frantic state vanished, she didn't understand what was being painted, but her eyes were attracted to variety of vibrant colors, ignoring the darker ones. Once her parents's red SUV passed, she was back into her frenzied state.

Sharon was almost on her tippy toes with her black lace-up Chelsea boots with little chains around her foot — Attached to the laces. Her blue jeans were frayed. Her black crop hoodie top exposed her waist.

Sharon's upward spraying had led to her spraying halfway up the wall now. Her pink bob hair lightly waved to the passing cars behind her, but her eyes never looked away from the wall for a second. She was not at all bothered by the cars — She stayed away from the road, bet that's why she wasn't bothered or afraid that some first-time driver or a drunk driver might swerve off the road and crash her to the wall.

If ever she got hit by a car, she deemed it better to lose one or both her legs, if the accident would be that severe. 'You can still make art on a wheelchair, but you sure as hell would need to be skilled to create art with your feet.' And she wasn't one of those skilled people. She could negotiate if losing limbs were one of the results of the accident.

Remembering that it was Friday tore her lively spirit, she eased off the valve and became distracted. Her art was her escape from reality, the grim reality she lived in. Her parents divorced when she was 12 years old, they have been exchanging places of her and her little brother Shaun, whom was now the age Sharon was when the divorce happened, since then. This Friday was their turn to spend the weekend at their dad's.

Sharon was most depressed on her mother's condition, unlike her father, she was not handling everything well. Stuck at a dead end job struggling to make ends meet could've gotten her to lose both Sharon and Shaun, but because her now ex-husband wasn't heartless, and their divorce was supposedly a mutual agreement, he convinced the court to settle a shared custody after generously getting her a decent job — To prove her capability to take care the kids.

But Sharon, although it took her till the age of 16 to realize, saw that her dad's Mother Theresa act was actually an attempt to ease his conscience.

Debra, Sharon's mother, had a constantly resurfacing issue, the same issue that got her fired only a couple of months later at the fancy job Sharon's dad got her into. Sharon sniffled, and tipped her wrist to her nose. She  picked up one spray paint, leaving the two empty ones and left.

Leaving an unfinished art of red dripping crossed bones on the mouth of a face that was only painted to the nose. The crossed bones must've signified being silenced, or not having the courage to speak up. This face was of a woman, brunette hair hanging down loosely from the sides, the paint fainted to the nose — Leaving out the eyes, forehead, and the rest of the face. This was one of the few paintings sighted around the city of a woman with red crossed bones pasted on her mouth.

The school bell rang, and opening the doors were the anxious, excited, some exhausted faces of kids. Both elementary and high school kids, the exhausted faces mostly came from the older kids, the younger ones were usually jolly. As the hallway filled with the crowd, Tina Abebe always struggled to make her way to the exit.

Trying to get past the older kids and avoiding accidental elbow-to-the-eye situations was the tiring part of Tina's day, not the homeworks they'd receive. Tina was a 10 year-old girl. She was the jolly chubby kind of child, always looked on the bright side of things. She was obsessed with insects, that she pushed her parents to get her multiple jars to keep the insects she'd find wandering in the garden.

There was a passing thought to one of her parents as a jest, that Tina's love for insects attracted these insects and arthropods to their garden.

As her teacher always said; A destined entomologist, that's what Tina is.

To avoid the every day hassle, Tina would stand right outside her classroom long enough for the crowd to clear out. She waited patiently with her yellow Mickey Mouse school bag drooping from her forefingers and middle fingers on the top grab handle.

Her lively eyes investigated the faces that passed by, there were so many different emotions of the faces of the school kids and teachers. Amid this examination, one face stood out, a familiar one. Perhaps the one she was searching for.

The depressed face with wrinkles, baggy eyes, and a stagnant frown, with the worn out eye brows that depressed the eyes. A thick mustache, also. The janitor, wearing his red baseball cap. Tina couldn't see his name tag, but she knew he was a deadie, as she called him, among a select group of strangers she encounters and some of her family members. But she never called them this name aloud.

While the janitor was sluggishly dragging the bucket and the mop to the other side of the block, Tina envisioned a small butterfly with radiant yellow wings emerge out of her body from her solar plexus. The butterfly crawled up her shirt with its wings slightly twitching, Tina watched it until it reached her right shoulder. She smiled at it, and it smiled back. The yellow wings started fluttering and it flew to the sad janitor's direction.

She watched it as it fluttered, dodging out of the way of the very few passing learners. The yellow butterfly set land upon the unsuspecting janitor's name tag, so Tina closed her eyes shut trying to use the butterfly's compound eyes to see the janitor's name. But the butterfly was not real. Tina was well aware that the butterfly wasn't real, but there was no crime in trying to expand one's imagination. Sometimes her imagination was real.

She controlled the butterfly with her eyes and mind, it crawled down from the janitor's chest and stopped at his abdomen. The janitor was going to disappear into the other block to either clean or rest, and him disappearing from Tina's sight would mean the butterfly would also 'disappear'. The butterfly entered into the janitor's abdomen, and went into his solar plexus.

In Tina's mind, the merging of the butterfly and the janitor's solar plexus caused a bright explosion of light that reached out of the janitor's body and radiated. A hand reached out to grab Tina's shoulder, it nearly startled her. She looked up at the bearded man with worry on his face and smiled. Daddy! Her father picked her up and bore her in his bent arm. The crowd cleared out a while ago, Tina, and you did not come out. I was worried.

The janitor felt a wave of uplifting energy inside of him that he caught himself smiling out of nowhere. He turned around to where Tina was standing, flabbergasted. Could the child that was gazing at him during lunchtime and just now be the reason behind this? Tina was gone, her father had taken her to the car and drove off.

Isaac Daksh lay passed out on his Windows laptop's keyboard, luckily he had not drooled on any of the buttons. His shoulders exhausted his lolling arms from the table, causing the buttons to paste upon the side of his face. His messy classic slick back hair brushed upon the screen. The piles of newspapers, magazines, scattered cue cards of notes he had jotted down the night before were disorganized all over his desk.

His cell phone was down on the carpet, a few inches away from his chair. And on his right was a bucket filled with crumpled papers that were soggy from some strange thick fluid that released an acrid odour.

The aggressive knocking, no, the pounding on the door of his house woke him up. He lifted his head from the keyboard so quick that he almost pulled out some of the buttons his face was resting on. Looking down his thighs, he saw the strange fluid dried on his right thigh leaving remnants that appeared to be of a sausage on his pyjama pants.

He alertly looked over the bucket, seeing the fluid almost made him puke. He threw the small piece of sausage into the bucket. The knocking on the door continued. Isaac held his palm close to his mouth with his fingers crooked and breathed on it, the smell of his vomit was sent into his nostrils. He quickly got up from the chair and picked up his cell phone, hearing a crack as he bent his knees.

After exiting his study, he looked back at his desk and saw a substance in a crystalized form he knew he had to hide, so he locked the study and tried not to fall as he walked to answer the door.

Behind the door was his younger brother, Jai, with a smile that was instantly killed by the smell that reeked from Isaac, Jai coughed and covered his nose, Oh my — What's that smell?

Oh, it's you. Isaac said, ignoring the question. He looked as though he weren't expecting his brother to be the one behind the door. He dragged his feet back to the couch and sossed down. Jai let himself in and carried the grocery bag to the sink, the dirty dishes and spilled food at the sink had some strange combined smell and did not allow him to place the grocery bag anywhere near the mess. Something might crawl out and into the grocery he'd brought his brother.

So, next week Thursday is Mother's birthday. She and Sneha are coming over to town, he pulled out some grocery and placed it on the kitchen counter. I think they should stay at my house when they arrive. But Isaac was not listening to him, he was busy browsing the channels on TV. Jai saw a framed picture behind a cereal box on the kitchen counter, he looked back at Isaac and sighed.

The purple butterfly on Tina's father's neatly combed small afro made Tina giggle. Her dad looked over his shoulder and curiously asked her what was funny, Did Mr Grasshopper escape from his place again? He asked Tina zipped her lips as her face compressed the immense laughter that wanted to burst out. Mr Abebe looked at the rearview mirror and tilted his head to try and see if there weren't any grasshopper crawling on his hair as this would not be the first time this happens. These imaginary insects of Tina's had occasionally scared both her parents, at some point the thought that this was a cause for concern crossed her father's head.

He was concerned of Tina's wild imagination. She should have overgrown this phase when she was 7 years old, but it never left. Tina spoke in her mind, at the butterfly,

You're scaring Dad again, we will meet when I'm home when he's not around. He doesn't understand. But it's not his fault, there are lots of deadies out here. The butterfly fluttered to the window and disappeared into it, as though it had teleported into another dimension. Leaving the purple light dimming on the window until it completely disappeared.

Through the window Tina saw a girl with pink hair kicking rocks on the sidewalk, she wasn't a 'deadie', that was for sure. She was neither happy nor depressed, and Tina found her fascinating. If she could take off the hood, that would remove the hair that blocked the side view of her face and Tina could wave at her.

But Sharon did not see Tina, she had a lot on her mind —which was a dangerous thing to do— being distracted while walking near the roads. This was the second child to gaze at Sharon. The car drove by Sharon. Tina felt a little let down to not have had the chance to greet this strange non-deadie.

Chapter 2

T

he yellow moc toe boots walked on the solid black ground, leaving yellow luminous footprints that pasted and dimmed to darkness after not more than two seconds. The clacking sounds echoed in this strange world.

Green waves of light appeared out of nowhere and limped toward Peridot, the dark world still remained dim even when the waves suffused. The aurora lights! That's what the green wavy lights were. In the upper hemisphere hovered dozens of small planets, or maybe they were so far high and extended Peridot's fantasy in-progress solar system that they appeared minuscule.

Peridot's personal favorite was the gray Saturn-like planet, its rings were made of circulating shooting stars, circling the planet in an infinite loop. It was the biggest planet, probably because Peridot fed it most his imagination. There were other three that stood out, the trinity planets of abstract art.

As glorious as these planets were, none of them were inhabited. The further Peridot walked, the closer he got to one infant planet that was fixed to the ground. The planet was dull; lifeless (Unlike the others that only lacked inhabitants, it lacked both life of its own and life that would dwell on it). It was like a huge wrecking ball.

He stopped in front of it, it was big enough to be a capsule that would only fit one person. His right hand rested on the planet, it was as hard as a rock. It was as if he was petting the little planet — if its extremely small size did not incapacitate it from being called a planet. A couple of steps beside him the ground started bulging, the solid ground that momentarily traced had become elastic.

A hand thrusted out from beneath the ground, Peridot almost flinched. It was like a zombie coming from the grave during an apocalypse. But unlike a zombie, the hand had its flesh attached and it was farthest from looking decomposed. The hand, however, wasn't a normal hand; It had hair woven around it to the back of the hand and met to a tip at the end — in the middle of the knuckles.

The hair was not guard hair. It was the woman whose hand came out from below's hair, the woman's skin was the same as the ground's. Dark green veins that would easily be confused for cracks crawled vigorously all over the surface of her seemingly solid skin. The woman fully emerged from the ground and instantly the ground returned to its solid state and balanced her.

The woman had a very attractive body, she was like a model from a front cover of a magazine — specifically a Victoria's Secret model. She was tall, she had long legs, and the face to complement the model starter pack. She was naked, the only clothing she wore was her abnormal hair. She was bold, but had a focused, single pony tail the went down the back of her neck to clinging onto her chest, all the way down from the back and around her waist, and onward the hair spread curling and clinging tightly to also the arms and legs.

Some of the crack-like veins raced to the top of her head and made her eyes open, then continued crawling everywhere. She had long eyelashes, no eyebrows, and her dark green eyes gave life to her hair —setting it aflame— though, the small flames didn't kill the hair. The crackling fire's light was as weak as the auroras'.

Peridot looked over his shoulder at the woman, not removing his hand from the wrecking ball, and asked, Where were you last night?

The woman, with her sweet, soft voice, Why? You needed me?

Peridot took his eyes back to the wrecking ball, leaving the woman to try and figure out what she had missed, perhaps a fantasy date night. It would've been strange that his own imagination would be absent to his calling. The woman tilted her head side to side, almost in a playful manner as she tried and figure out Peridot's grumpy mood — But that is how he usually was, just less grumpy.

She figured it out. She was taller than Peridot, so she slightly bent to be closer to his face and whispered, You were in the mood, I see.

I don't know why you're whispering, it's just us here. And no, I wasn't.

Well, you're not giving me much to work with. I'm just guessing. Why did you need me? She asked.

Peridot's arm involuntarily released from the wrecking ball and swung lifelessly to rest. The woman chuckled, she stood upright and smiled. She saw Peridot's tired eyes — which was difficult to see, considering that he always had the grouch-like facial expression, or he was trying to imitate a particular fictional character's brooding. The skewed yellow utility belt would suggest the latter.

The woman noted and advised him, You did not sleep last night, I presume. You should rest, sleep. And maybe spend more time outsi—

You didn't answer my question. I'm leaving... he talked over her, before his eyelids shut he saw the hurt in the woman's eyes. So he tried making her feel better, to rest, that is. I'll see you tonight, okay? His words managed to do some repair.

Isaac had his feet on the table, relaxed, with one on top of the other until Jai pushed them off to pass. He sat next to his elder brother and offered him a bowl of cereal. Isaac sat up straight and started taking slow, small bites. Jai was having a hard time figuring out if Isaac was struggling to eat or if he was just reluctant.

He brushed it off, he asked him, How have you been?

I have been good. As you can see, I'm not dead. Isaac responded, eyes fixed on the cereal. The playing theme song of the cartoon was too loud, so Jai snatched the remove from Isaac's thigh and muted the TV.

He noticed a stain on his brother's thigh, the stain he was trying to hide with the remote. Seeing Jai analyzing the stain, Isaac told him that he spilled some milk on it.

Jai did not buy it. I know a milk stain, and your bowl does not have enough milk to spill out — I know that, because I poured the milk.

Isaac nonchalantly responded, I was peeing, then something outside my window scared me.

The strange, acrid odour that had taken residence in his mouth, plus the stain, it didn't take Jai long enough to put it together and make a conclusion. Isaac's response was utter nonsense, that, he knew without a doubt. He remembered the supposedly hidden picture in the kitchen.

He came out and said it, You had vomited!

Please, please, don't make this a big deal.

You need help. And I'm here, Sneha is here, Mom, too. Dad also. People from your workplace. He sighed. Stewart called me, he said you haven't been showing up to work for almost a while now. Thinks you might be fired. The articles.

Isaac started crying, his head lowered. But it wasn't because of his colleague, Stewart, or to the suggestion from his younger brother of him needing help.

He blubbered, It's my fault, Jai. It's all my fault!

Jai took the unstable bowl of cereal from his hands and placed it on the table — before Isaac ends up spilling milk and cereal on himself. He tried comforting him. It was not your fault, you have to stop blaming yourself.

How is it not my fault? I was the one driving! Isaac cried.

But you weren't the one who hit the truck.

But I was the one who ran the red light!

Jai had no counter for that one, except that it wasn't Isaac's fault — but Isaac did not want to hear that. The reason behind him running the red light at high speed was why Jai said it wasn't his fault. But they had Thursday coming up, hopefully his mother will be able convince him that it wasn't his fault. He hasn't spoken to her