The Second Sight thriller rolls on….

AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN

THE SECOND SIGHT

THE CALLING

A paranormal Thriller

Not for the squeamish!

Season 1 Eps. 39

CAPO DI TUTTI CAPI

Location: GOLGOTHA HEIGHTS INT. CHURCH HEADQUARTERS

Hideous is still curled around his ankles, and the Shadow-Thing is still resting on the side of the Hummer, motionless, silent, and watching.

BOAT

(tearfully, exhausted)

A little help here, God, please!

And then, thankfully, it happens!

From the other direction a motor-bike appears, approaching tentatively, its tiny horn blaring disconsolately. It is a pathetic cheap machine… but it is shrouded with the glorious force-field!

Saved again… but this time Yaw Boat knows that it is no coincidence!

Somehow, somewhere, a secret sympathizer is cutting him a few edges, pushing a few freebies down his way, helping him, answering some little prayers until – when?

 

Suddenly Boat’s feet are free as Hideous scampers for cover with a terrible screech of fear, shooting straight into the air in a frantic straight line!

Boat smiles nastily and looks at the side of the Hummer.

Shadow-Thing is long gone!

Suddenly Boat feels like jumping up and dancing or screaming out his joy! He is that elated!

The two cops are slightly crouched now, lips bared in that goofy way Boat has come to know, their eyes caged and full of fear as the motor rider approaches.

Yaw Boat propels himself to his feet and swings a right fist from the hip. It is a perfect upper-cut that sends the cop with the gun crashing down, unconscious even before he hits the ground.

 

The other cop drops his handcuffs and tries to reach for his gun. Boat’s shoulder crashes into him, and he flew backwards, his head going through the space left by the exploded window of the car in front of Boat’s burning car.

Boat staggers blindly forward, pushing and elbowing people out of his way.

The motor-rider is quite young. His face looks distraught, concerned and bewildered. He swallows with fear as Boat stumbles towards him.

He is obviously scared of this big, bloodied and dizzy man coming towards him.

Boat holds the handlebars of the bike and looks desperately at the young boy.

BOAT

(desperately)

Listen, pal. I know you’re a good Christian. At this very particular moment in my life I need to see my father desperately. He is also a very good Christian. Do you think you can give me a ride to Golgotha Heights International Chapel?

He stares hard into Boat’s eyes, trying to allay his fears and to convince himself that Boat is being sincere and not speaking rubbish out of a crazed mind.

 

Never in his life has he been so sincere, and after a moment of inward debate the boy reluctantly nods slowly.

RIDER

(scared, uneasy)

Okay, sir. Get on!

Thankfully Boat climbs unto the bike.

The young man turns it round and moves off.

Boat revels in the glow of the force-field, and allows it to wash over him. His head drops now and then to the rider’s shoulder, but the man doesn’t give any sign to indicate that he is offended.

Pain is a limb now, a constant companion that refuses to part from Boat. Fatigue weighs down heavily on him, and all he needs is a cold shower and a long sleep.

How he wishes for those days when he is king of the town, living without a care in the world, living life to the full each day.

 

But how ancient those days seem to him now; it is hard to believe that only twenty-four hours ago he has been free of all the mess he now finds himself in.

But he has defeated them, yes. It had been hard, real hard, but in the end he is headed where he wants to be. Evil has tried its best to stop him, but here is, riding to his father, protected by this young man and his force-field.

That makes sense, in a way.

Finally, they arrive at the church premises.

Golgotha Heights International, Headquarters.

It isn’t a building; it is a city.

Boat’s father had acquired the land when it was still virtually a forest on the outer fringes of Beach County, and he had only goal in his mind: to build a spectacular house for God.

 

With a long-term project in mind he had bided his time and developed it in stages. The end result is amazing. Golgotha slowly took shape, became a giant, and soon turned out to be an imposing edifice that decorates the whole region.

It has several well-structured flat-roofed buildings – administration blocks, sports complex, multi-lingual service blocks, baptismal pool areas, conference sections, recreational facility complexes, restaurants and play pens – that stretches as far as the eye can see.

The main entrance is decorated by a huge sculpture of Jesus hanging on the cross at Golgotha; it is encased in a circular glass structure that is erected on a spectacular octagonal fountain.

All these are separated by stretches of lush green grass, exotic plants and flowers, nicely-kept gardens, parks with benches and shades, beautifully-hedged walkways and smooth driveways, and given a supernatural aura by artistically-designed street lamps.

Small buses, luxurious trams and sleek sedans are neatly-parked on an ‘Official Vehicles Only’ car park where crowds of people headed for specific destinations on the premises can receive a free ride.

 

There is also a gigantic ‘Public Parking Lot’ and this is where the rider drops off Boat.

When Boat gets down he sees that the young man is looking at him with something close to pity on his face.

Fatigued, face-swollen, and incredibly dirty, he might have looked a sight as he fumbles out his wallet out of his back pocket.

RIDER

(gently)

I hope you find peace, mister.

Boat smiles wanly and pulls out clean bills.

BOAT

I will, brother, hopefully I will find peace now.

Boat proffers the bills to the rider.

He looks at the money, bewildered.

BOAT

(encouragingly)

Go on, take the money, my brother. Top up your gas and use the rest to chill. You’ve been a great help.

 

He eyes the money, and then looked at Boat sheepishly, but he makes no attempt to accept the money.

Boat sighs and pushes the bills into the boy’s top pocket and turns away.

RIDER

(excitedly)

Thank you, my boss. May God bless you!

The whole area is crowded as usual.

The evening services are obviously over and people are making their way to the car parks and to the roadside, chattering excitedly.

Evidently it has been a tremendous performance from Boat’s father, who has been the speaker that evening. From what Boat hears, it has been one of his ‘inspired’ fire-and-brimstone deliveries.

Although there is a General Overseer who is in charge of the Church, Joe Boat is really the power here. He owns the Church, and sometimes delivers the sermons.

 

He is a gifted preacher, and Boat has sometimes marvelled and been awed at how eloquent and really inspiring his father can be.

Mr. Joe Boat, multimillionaire, is one of the most powerful men in the world, and could have led a life full of fleshly enjoyment; he could have lived like a king, but instead he has devoted his life to serving God.

Boat walks through the crowd, pushing some people not so gently from his path. Several recognize hiim, and Boat can read the shocked disapproval on their faces, looks that condemns him for appearing in church looking the way he is, an obvious humiliation to his ‘divine’ father.

He pays no heed to them as he makes his way towards the row of church vehicles.

And then a voice explodes to his right, high-pitched, alarmed, and disapproving.

MISS BONDZIE

Yaw Boat! What happened to you? You look a sight! How could you-

 

She is approaching a side-entrance of the Executive car park, holding a pile of files in her arms.

Boat cuts in harshly, bitterly. He has just about had enough of everybody and everything jumping on him… plus, he has never really liked her anyway.

BOAT

(harshly)

Where’s my father?

MISS BONDZIE

He’s at his private park, in here. He’s waiting for me. Yaw, he’s been quite concerned about you all evening. Says you’re in some sort of trouble and he needs to see you. Come, let’s go.

She moves toward a small lighted gate that has a red neon inscription at the top that reads ‘Out of Bounds’.

A uniformed security guard opened the door for them and they go down a flight of stairs and then walks up a short lighted corridor that has a bigger door at the end.

 

This door opens unto a wide, underground parking lot.

Cars are revving up whilst others pull out.

Boat’s eyes scan the place quickly, and he sighs inwardly with great relief when he sees his father’s handsome profile across the row of cars.

He is standing with three men near his huge white Hummer.

One of the men with him is Chris Burns, the General Overseer of Golgotha Heights. The other two look vaguely familiar; Boat pays them no further heed.

Even from that distance he can see that his father is worried and in a hurry. He keeps glancing at his watch whist his right hand rests on the doors of his car, and his handsome face looks tense with worry for his son.

An overwhelming sense of peace floods Yaw Boat, and at that particular moment his love for his father soars, and he feels tears pricking his eyes.

Finally, he is here, and help is available.

 

Yaw Boat begins to trot towards his father, moving through rows of cars, ignoring the perplexed honks of reversing drivers who suddenly finds him in the way.

The distance between them closes until, thankfully, Boat is within touching distance of his father, who is still slightly turned from him, and one of the men with him touches him on the shoulder and points at Boat.

Mr. Joe Boat turns toward his, his face clearing of worry and filling up with relief when he sees his son.

BOAT

(choked with passion)

Dad! Oh, Dad!

Boat’s arms are outstretching involuntarily, reaching out for help and solace… for peace.

For love!

JOE BOAT

Yaw… my dearest son!

Joe Boat’s lips forms the words, and his arms come up, ready to receive his son and hug him.

The three men are moving away, paving way for father and son, and just at the last moment before their  bodies meet, Boat’s gaze wavers momentarily and settles on his father’s shadow which is thrown against the white body of the huge Hummer.

Jesus, dear Lord,.. that shadow!

 

The shadow of the outstretched arms of his father, thrown out sharply against the Hummer, have only three fat fingers on them!

Boat’s horror-stricken eyes traced that shadow downward, from the body of the Hummer, to the floor, to where it joins his father’s feet.

Three huge legs …spiky protruding objects on its body…

Jesus Lord!

Boat’s eyes go back to the shadow thrown across the body of the Hummer… no head, because it is too huge, and the head disappeared on the black background of the windows.

But, dear sweet Lord, it is it!

It is the damn Shadow-Thing…

And it is living inside his father!

Yaw Boat comes to a halt, too stunned to move, and at that particular moment he dies!

Yaw Boat’s heart dies!

His world dies!

He dies!

 

His heart stops beating for a spell, and his eyes almost shoot clear out of their sockets.

Boat’s father grabs his arm in a vice-like grip.

He is a big man, and he is strong.

Boat’s mind is just about to explode; there they are, face to face at last, father and son, blood lines, next of kin… lovers from a pure strain.

Boat simply can’t breathe.

His legs buckle, and if it hadn’t been for his father’s firm grip on his arm, Boat would’ve crashed to the floor in his horror.

The terror he feels, the fear, the agony, is not like any he has ever known …so completely paralysing!

From now on, son, you can’t trust anybody. Evil is all around you, and once you’ve been chosen, believe me that these terrible forces will not let you go that easily!

Anderson!

How right he has been.

Oh, how right!

 

And then, suddenly, without warning, the second horror hits Yaw Boat as he looks at his father’s face!

Joe Boat’s eyes are a boiling, violent rainbow!

Conflicting, dirty colours roll in his eyes, from one shade to the next, a crippling, maddening spectrum of different colours!

Yaw Boat begins to weep bitterly as he watches his father’s face.

He just wants to die!

His father is also a vessel!

Judging by the changing colours of his horrible rainbow eyes, it seems his father is occupied not only by one demon… but a host of demons!

A Legion of Demons!

Because, blazing on his father’s forehead – thick, bloody, dripping, ominous, terrifying – dirtier than any he has seen so far, is the mark of the beast!

666!

Season 1 Eps. 40

THE HUSTLE

Location: GOLGOTHA HEIGHTS INTERNATIONAL CHURCH

Death has finally found Yaw Boat in his most vulnerable place… the arms of love!

A strange calmness slowly spreads over him.

Boat doesn’t know where it came from, but at the moment his heart almost gives up, the calmness begins to roll all over his soul, a detached balm that feels like drinking the coldest glass of water in the heart of the Sahara Desert.

Through the fog in his brain he is aware that if he becomes further traumatized, even one degree more terrorized, he will go insane.

The mysterious peace spreads through him, settling his nerves, forcing him to accept what has happened, and face it with all its ugly implications.

His father.

His own sweet loving father!

The only person he loves more than himself, his hero.

 

A man considered as one of the most powerful men of God, blessed multimillionaire… a man who has always showered Boat with nothing but pure love.

Where does reality end, and insanity begin? Is it a dream he will wake up from and find it his father there to cradle him and assure him that everything is okay?

No.

Nothing will be okay ever again.

A lot of things suddenly make sense to Boat.

How else could Samson Basoah have gotten away with possible murder, and maintained that terrible temple in the house of a renowned man of God?

 

And Samson Basoah has played along, feeding Boat’s ignorance, not letting Boat know the father he loves so much is also a part of the deadly game, the main fulcrum in the machinery around which everything else revolves.

Who are these people, and what plans do they have for him? What will happen to him? More importantly what does his father plan to do to him?

How can it be possible that this man he loves so much can be a part of this? As the fire-preaching man of God isn’t he supposed to be opposed to such evil? How come then, that his very soul is the seat of a terrible three-legged horned monster?

What the hell is going on?

Deep down in Boat’s heart is the hurt, the agony, the crippling panic that is caused by his feeling of helplessness, but he knows he can’t let it take over now.

Whatever happens from now Boat knows that he is going to lose a father, the only person who matters to him, but the terrible unbearable ache from that will come later, if there is going to be a ‘later’, that is.

 

A million unanswered questions plagues Boat’s mind, threatening to consume him, but these too can wait. If, by some strange intervention, he is able to survive this and meet Paul Anderson, everything will be made clear and maybe, just maybe, the agony of pure love betrayed by no other but his loving father will not totally tear him apart.

Yaw Boat thus forces himself to look into those infernal eyes – eyes that constantly explode into different colours – and then he tries to tug free from his father’s grip.

BOAT

(voice shattered)

Let go of me.

His voice is raised. He doesn’t know whether he is speaking to his father, or the beast within the man. He just knows that he has to get away from this man.

Boat yanks his arm hard, trying to break his father’s hold on him, but he is as strong as a thousand Samsons, and his grip is one of iron.

JOE BOAT

(hissing)

Be still, son! Be calm. Everything is going to be alright. Just trust me, my son.

BOAT

(bitterly, harshly)

Trust you? Trust you? I’ll rather die first!!

 

It comes out as a wild shout, and he hears the audible intakes of breath from the three men with his father.

MISS BONDZIE

(with a horrified screech)

Yaw Boat! Really!

She sounds like an affronted nun.

Joe Boat smiles sheepishly at the three men and the other people who have appeared from nowhere; they are evidently other senior men in the church, and have been drawn to the scene by the sound of Boat’s high-pitched voice.

JOE BOAT

(sadly)

My son has been under a terrible strain lately. Please, excuse his behaviour.

He speaks with the wounded expression of the hurt pious father whose son keeps going wayward.

One of the men with him speaks; he is a white-haired.

 

ELDER 1

Of course, Mr. Boat, of course. We understand.

All of them cannot, however, keep their stunned eyes from Yaw Boat’s face.

JOE BOAT

(lovingly, passionately)

Let’s go home now, son.

And that is what finally breaks Yaw Boat’s heart completely.

That show of extreme love which he has relied on all his life, and which he is just finding out is laced with something much more potent and evil.

It breaks his heart and, try as hard as he can, he just can’t stop the tears from stinging his eyes, and spilling slowly down my cheeks.

Boat screams at his father then, unable to hold back the pain and the helplessness, the dejection and the unbearable agony.

 

BOAT

(passionately)

I’m your bloody son! I love you! I love you more than anything, ANYTHING, Daddy! Why the fuck are you doing this to me?

For a moment – a very brief moment – Joe Boat’s eyes clear, and his grip on his son’s arm slackens.

Boat catches a glimpse of him then, his real father, way back down there, face tortured, real pain mirrored in his soul. But it is just for a fraction of time.

JOE BOAT

(resignedly)

Let’s go home, son.

Joe Boat looks over Boat’s shoulder, nodding to somebody behind him.

Boat turns his head.

It is Samson Basoah.

He is immaculately dressed as usual, looking as huge as a mountain, but his face shows the bruises of the fight he has had with Boat.

Riding high across Samson’s shoulders is a gloomy-faced Hideous.

 

Joe Boat addresses the gaping church elders.

JOE BOAT

(in a pain-filled voice)

If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, I have to take my son home. I’ll see you all tomorrow.

With words of solace and support to Joe Boat they turn in singles and twos and head for their vehicles and for the entrance. They have scorching looks for Boat, looks of loathing and distaste, blaming him obviously for making their hero’s world a living hell.

Panic grips Boat as they began to disperse.

He will be left alone with his father and his demons!

Boat begins to struggle furiously again, and his father has to hold him with two hands.

 

BOAT

(screaming, frightened, desperate)

No, please, don’t leave me! Oh, please, please! Stop! Don’t let them take me away… they’re going to-

He doesn’t finish.

His father steps forward sharply, and Boat doesn’t see his left hand coming up until he chops Boat viciously in the throat with the edge of his left hand.

Boat gasps with acute pain. He grabs his throat as he sags, making choking noises as he struggles to breathe, tears of pain blinding him.

As Boat falls he sees Miss Bondzie’s ashen face.

She is staring at Joe Boat with something approaching horror.

Miss Bondzie has seen the savageness with which he has struck his son, and she is horrified!

She has never seen him like that before, and has never expected her to ever hit out at his son because he loves Boat so much!

To her, and many others, Joe Boat is an angel personified.

Her hands are now pressed to her heart, and her eyes are bulging with horror.

 

Boat’s body goes through spasms as he fights for breath and consciousness, and his agony is doubled because of the emotional pain of that blow.

Physically it is painful, but deep down in his soul it tears his heart to shreds. He knows then that his link with his father is severed, maybe for ever.

He falls on his hands and knees, then on his side, and finally he rolls over on his back.

His father towers above him, and for another brief instant that horrible mark disappears from his forehead, and the crazy eyes recede too.

This time Boat clearly sees the pain-filled face that looks down at him. The face of a shattered soul, a lost man calling for help, a father tortured by what he is doing to his son.

Boat sees real pain, raw agony and remorse, and it finally sinks in to him that somehow it isn’t his father who is doing all these things… the demons in him are now running things, suppressing his father and taking over.

Almost with a rush Boat sees that thing within is father is taking over again, the mark blazing furiously, the eyes changing colours more rapidly, blazing death!

 

The Shadow-Thing inside his father is mad!

It had not liked the way Joe Boat has submerged its dominance, even if for a brief moment!

That tells Boat something else, and makes him accept what is happening more rationally.

Somehow, the person looming over him has his father’s face and features, but he is not the real Joe Boat. Somewhere deep there, lost and screaming, Joe Boat still exists, but his will is submerged, pushed down and trodden on. That is why Boat has seen the shadow of the beast, and not that of his father Dad.

Samson Basoah is bending over Boat. His coat parts, and Boat sees the gun in his shoulder holster.

Hope. Fight. Never give up!

Never ever give up!

These are beasties with fangs, Goliaths with a mean spirit.

Can’t afford to let them to have him, because they’re gonna maim him goooood!

 

Samson grabs Boat’s shirt to haul him up, and Boat pushes upward, his hand reaching furiously, angrily for the butt of the gun.

He yanks it out and rolls away, gaining his feet and releasing the safety. Blindly, without pausing, he fires in the general direction of his antagonists.

Samson dives for Joe Boat, pulling him down behind the body of a sleek black Lexus.

Yaw Boat is running again, as fast as his agonized legs can carry him. He hits the exit door with his shoulder, races along the short corridor, goes up the stairs and exits on the Public Parking Lot.

There are still a lot of people milling around, and when they see the gun in his hand they begin to flee and shout.

The startled security man at the gate tries to draw the gun strapped at his waist. boat closes the gap between them as as he quickly reverses the gun. He brings the butt down hard against the security man’s temple, and he collapses with a throaty ‘guusha’ kind of sound.

Boat jumps over his inert form and races blindly towards the main gate.

 

A harsh street lamp is behind him now, elongating his shadow on the concrete floor, and as he runs he sees another shadow looming large on the ground, behind him, the horned head racing past Boat’s shadow, hands balled.

Once again Boat steel’s himself for the blow, but when it comes it is once again still unexpected, still terrible, still excruciating.

It smashes against his back, causing spittle and drops of blood to spew out of Boat’s mouth as he falls. Boat crashes to the floor, banging his head hard on the ground, and the gun goes skittering under the parked cars.

Dazed, Boat lies on the ground as a large number of people began to gather around him.

Season 1 Eps. 41

THE SECOND SIGHT

THE ANGEL

Location: ELAINE’S RESIDENCE

Lost! He has lost again!

And then, incredibly, unbelievably, a sweet melodious voice speaks above him.

A voice he recognizes, a voice he loves, a voice he adores!

The voice of his angel!

Sweet, beautiful, lovely Elaine Sarpong!

His love, his fantasy, his sweetheart… his breath!

ELAINE

(worried, anxious)

Yaw? Are you alright, my love?

Yaw Boat looks up at her.

She is wearing some kind of white dress as she bends over him, dropping her handbag and bible on the ground, her face concerned, loving.

But, most importantly, she is covered with the glorious force-field.

 

Brilliant, huge, all-enveloping, so nice!

Beyond her Boat catches a sheen of green and turns his head.

He sees Hideous crashing through the floor, disappearing, fleeing!

The Shadow-Thing is also gone.

BOAT

(whispering)

Fucking bastards! Help me up, my love. Please get me out of here!

He gets to his feet, gasping for breath, and puts his left arm across Elaine’s shoulder.

ELAINE

(anxiously)

Yaw, what’s wrong? What’s going on? You look so… so shattered!

 

BOAT

(weakly)

Elly, please get me out of here. No time to explain. Please get me out of here. I think I’m going to black out because I feel so light-headed and weak, and feels a blackout coming on. But whatever happens, please don’t leave my side! Not even for a second. Promise me that!

Somebody gives her the bible and her handbag.

She takes Boat’s arm, and leads quickly off the parking lot.

Yaw Boat keeps looking back, expecting to see his father and Basoah at the entrance, but none of them emerge.

Elaine flags down a taxi on the main road, and she helps Boat get inside.

The last thing Boat remembers is lying down on the seat, his head cradled in her laps, eyeing the fine twin mounds of her breasts stretching the fabric of her dress quite nicely.

Exhaustion is like a band of iron across his shoulders, and relief is a blissful wind that blows across his frame.

 

Boat turns on the seat and buries his face in her stomach. She tenses for a moment, and then her arms tighten on Boat’s shoulders, and pulls him closer.

His arms snake around her, and he holds her close. She is warm and soft, and she smells so nice.

The gentle motion of the car is a rocking sensation that dulls his senses, and soon he allows the darkness to steal over him, and he welcomes the sweet sleep.

He deserves it, at least… if nothing for else.

Boat slips into an exhausted sleep.

She shares an apartment with a friend called Anne, and as she unlocks the door Boat hears her mumbling something about Anne being out for the night, something to do with her new boyfriend.

Boat is still drowsy as she leads him through the living-room to her bedroom.

 

It is a big, clean room.

The floor is covered with soft Venetian rug, probably bought second-hand, but nice all the same. The bed is circular and huge, covered with clean flowered white and pink sheets and a lot of pillows. Three little Teddy Bears are lying neatly across it.

A 21-inch colour television shaped like an apple is erected halfway on the wall, and beneath it is a handy home-theatre stereo system and a little silver DVD player. Near to that is a wide computer table on which is a laptop, a few books and earphones.

A dressing-table with a huge mirror sits across the room, near the windows that opens unto a small terrace.

The doors of the wardrobe are closed.

Opposite the bed is a deep sofa, two low tables and a tall compact disk rack. Beyond that is a closed door which probably leads to her bathroom.

 

She leads Boat to the sofa and gently helps him to sit down. She gets on her knees and removes his shoes and socks. Boat is suddenly aware of the fine curve of her buttocks, and the creamy tops of her breasts as she bend to stuff his socks in his shoes.

He sees that the edges of his trousers are still dark from the blood he has stepped in inside the chamber of horrors.

He looks at the incredibly-chiselled lines of her face.

So lovely… so adorable!

Precious Elaine!

She stands up and goes to her wardrobe and brings him a huge bathrobe.

ELAINE

(with a shy little smile)

I bought this for my Dad on his birthday. Never gave it to him because he travelled, and by the time he came back I have forgotten about it. A little small, I think, but it will have to do for now.

 

BOAT

(gently)

Thank you, Elly.

Boat notices that she is avoiding eye contact with him.

It is the same old game now.

They have had never been this alone and this emotionally close. She is the girl he has vowed to deflower, but now that she is here, he feels no urge to pursue his natural inclinations.

He has seen too much, and done too much. The depth of betrayal he has experienced from men he loves has drained him, and the evil that the demons are capable of has rendered him emotionally-shattered.

Boat is not sure he ever wants to make love to another woman again. It is Elaine he loves, and eventually he will marry her, and she is going to be his only woman for the rest of his life.

But that will come later, after he has seen Anderson again and gotten rid of the gift.

 

As he looks at her there is no longer lust in his eyes but deep respect, love and a rush of emotions alien to him. He feels silly, and wants to take her in his arms and sing to her, rocking her gently as they both slip off into deep slumber.

She has the amazing force-field, and that is all that matters. He is going to tell her everything, leaving nothing out, and then she will accompany him to Takoradi to look for Pastor Paul Anderson.

With her by his side, and with her wonderful force-field, those evil bastards will not dare come near him again.

She points to the door he has earlier assumed leads to a bathroom.

ELAINE

(shyly)

The bathroom is in there, Yaw. Go and take a shower. You look really battered up and dirty and stinky.  I’ll go and rustle up something in the kitchen for you. And then you can tell me everything that has happened to you, my love.

 

Boat begins to protest, to beg her to stay, but with a little rustle of silk she leaves the bedroom.

Yaw Boat feels a rush of sudden panic, expecting the room to fill up with the devilish green of Hideous, but nothing happens.

And then he remembers how they flee crazily in the presence of the force-field, and he knows that the evil beings will not dare show up when she is in the same building with him.

Feeling suddenly a little secure, Boat enters the bathroom and shirks his clothes.

The bathroom is not very big.

It is very feminine.

There is however no lacy intimate clothing lying around, and he smiles ruefully at the dirty turn of his thoughts.

He soaks under the shower for a long time, and then he reaches for huge sponge and some liquid soap.

 

After the long refreshing bath he towels himself dry slowly, and then slipped into the bathrobe. It is indeed small, and feels uncomfortably tight around the armpits and arms, giving him a pinched kind of look as he surveys himself in the half-length mirror on the wall.

He pulls it off and takes a huge towel from a pack on a rack, and drapes it around his waist instead.

The scent of fresh coffee assaults his nostrils as soon as he enters the bedroom again.

She is sitting on the sofa, regarding his naked hairy body frankly for a moment, and then she looked away, a blush spreading rapidly across her amazingly beautiful face.

BOAT

(softly)

You were right. Bathrobe was too tight.

She speaks without looking at him, and she points at a laden tray on her computer table.

ELAINE

Made you some coffee and tuna sandwiches, Yaw. If you prefer something heavier-

 

BOAT

(cutting in)

No, no, my love. This will do just fine.

Boat doesn’t realize how hungry he is until he has downed four cups of coffee and eaten all the six sandwiches.

He has been stressed, and doesn’t even remember the last time he has eaten. It seems he has just been fleeing from the evil ones forever.

He drinks a glass of water, stands up, belches and stretches luxuriously.

The towels around his waist starts to fall, and he groans with alarm and catches it fast, holding it in place.

She giggles, which stops suddenly as their eyes meet, and then she looks away quickly again.

She is so demure, so lovely, so precious…

 

Dearest Elaine!

Boat can feel the sleep stealing over him again.

He walks over to her and sits down beside her on the sofa. She is tense, and her hands are clasped together tightly.

Boat reaches out and covers her hands with his right hand. She tenses up, and then she slowly relaxes. Her hands unfolded and coil around his.

The mood is just right, and the atmosphere perfectly set-up, even better than he has ever planned it.

This could have been the setting for the great deflowering, but he knows it will not happen.

He has left that part of his life behind.

Yaw Boat is no longer the master player he has been.

 

He has transcended; he has been a selfish, irresponsible little lout, unable to see the diamond that she is. Here is a girl worth sticking to, a girl a man should love and protect. The kind of girl guys take home to meet Mommy.

It is amazing that his feelings has changed so drastically in the space of a couple of days. He has entertained the fantasy of taking her virginity and introducing her to his world of lust, and yet here he is, indulging another kind of craving, the sort that makes him feel like putting flowers in her hair and kissing her ankles.

The sort of feeling that makes his heart skip beats as he imagines her approaching him as he waits for her at the altar.

She now looks desperately into his eyes, and there is a little fear in the depths of hers.

 

ELAINE

(whispering)

Why were you running, Yaw? Why were you so hurt? I saw blood stains on all over your clothes, and I heard you were fighting with your father.

Boat winces and sighs.

Even thoughts about his father hurts him terribly.

His hand tightens on hers.

Season 1 Eps. 42

THE SECOND SIGHT

THE ELUCIDATION

Location: ELAINE’S RESIDENCE

BOAT

(tenderly)

My love, there’s so much I have to tell you. You wouldn’t believe what has happened to me. But tonight is magical, and I want to cherish it. Right now, I just found out how much I really love you, my precious Elly. I feel safe with you here. Promise me you won’t leave my side tonight, darling, because I need a long sleep. Tomorrow I’ll tell you and we’ll plan our future from there. But forgive me, my darling, I seem to be speaking like a primeval chauvinistic animal, taking you for granted. Will you let me be a part of your life, Elly? Forever?

She is looking at his face, starry-eyed, the expression on her face so tender and filled with so much love that it brings untold joy to his heart.

Twice she tries to speak, but her emotions seem to choke her.

 

ELAINE

(tearfully)

Take the bed, Yaw. I’ll be right here on this sofa, and I’ll never leave your side, my darling. Never ever, for as long as you’ll want me to be beside you. What I feel, what I’ve been feeling for you ever since I saw you, is nothing but love in its most complete and natural form.

For a long time they stare at each other, and then they smile, with love, with adoration, with happiness.

Feeling a happiness he has never felt before, Boat stands up and walks to the bed, and then he stops and turns to face her.

She has drawn up her legs, and he sees a flash of her creamy thighs. If ever a woman has looked contented and extremely beautiful, it is Elaine, at that particular moment.

 

BOAT

(emotionally)

You will marry me, won’t you, Elly?

Her face glows; it his answer. The smile on her lips is mischievous, loving, an angel epitomized.

He can see sudden tears of happiness shimmering in her eyes.

ELAINE

(tenderly)

You and me, Yaw. We’re one. Always will be. Go to sleep, my love.

Yaw Boat smiles happily, and obeys her.

 

He gets into the bed, and it seems he is asleep even before his head touches the pillow.

Sleepily, he is aware, barely, that she is in the room, moving silently around.

From a long way he hears her light steps on the floor as she closes the windows and pulls the blinds, and then a moment later the lights go out, plunging the room into darkness.

And then Boat smiles as he slips deeper into sleep.

And then, quite suddenly, she is there.

He can smell her, feel her against him, warm and soft, pliant, so fresh. He can feel her hands over him, fleeting and gentle, filled with love, traversing the length of his chest, burrowing into the hair on his chest, travelling downward and stopping just short of his loins.

 

Sleepily Boat holds her, murmuring in his sleep, and as his hands move across her, gently and passionately, still shrouded in that woozy web of half-sleep, the feeling of déjà vu slams through his head and straight into his heart, and then he knows!

She is, as Bob would’ve put it, absolutely well-bended!

She feels like a flow of silk, a thing of ethereal quality, a perfect geography of hills and valleys without flaws!

In the dark he cannot see her, but his marvelling hands run across her…

Silky shoulders, sinuous back, incredible buttocks, firm and proud breasts, taut sweet goose-fleshed nipples, an amazing flat tummy, an enchanted dip of navel, the most incredible roundness of hip, the flow of breath-taking thighs, the silky strands of hair at the core of her being, her incredible wetness as she moves up and down sensuously on his erection!

Soft moans come from her lips as she kisses him tenderly, passionately, hungrily…

 

She rears up above him, and as his hands grip her undulating hips, as she moves on him with incredible thrusts of her waist, as he slips so sweetly in and out of her, he knows…

Finally, he knows…

It was her!

That naked woman in his bed!

That unknown woman who has made love to him in the dark and disappeared in the morning…

The naked woman in the dark!

The one who has started it all…

It is her!!

 

Do you have any idea who that woman was, the one you slept with last night? … she lit the fuse of the dynamite that would obliterate you!

Anderson’s words!

Elaine?

Oh, dear God…

Elaine.

ELAINE!!

Yes, it is her, the naked woman in his bed, the strange woman who had made love to him and left him wondering, whose presence had been the catalyst for all the crazy happenings in his life!

What is happening?

 

Yaw Boat is fully awake now, and there she is, all over him, naked, a graceful angel in the dark, riding him hard as she makes the most incredible love to him!

Boat feels the crushing waves of pain again, and the fear begins to build up in him, excruciatingly, unbearably.

Tears come to his eyes in the dark.

BOAT

(confused, hurt)

Elly?

 

She does not speak.

Her fingers grip his chest as she thrusts harder, faster, tighter, sweeter!

He is aware of the allure of her, the pull of her soul, the lust of her sudden evil.

Her breasts are suddenly pressed against his chest, and her lips cover his.

 

Full, sweet, honeyed! Her tongue slams into his mouth, sweet, honey-filled, lust-created!

ELAINE

(panting, lustful)

Oh, Yaw, Yaw, Yaw! Love me, my destiny, my soul mate, my King! Yes, yes, yes!

Unacceptable!

Wrong!

Debauchery!

Dynamite!

Danger!

 

This can’t be happening!

Oh, Lord!

No, no, no!

It is her!

Her!!

So why the charade? Why the damn lies about virginity and not even allowing him to kiss her?

And the light further dawns…

He is finally elucidated…

She is a part of it!

 

From the very beginning she has been a part of them, part of the whole elaborate plan, part of some dark ugly plot!

But she has had the force-field, hadn’t she? Her own halo of divine righteousness?

There is a prayer in his heart that can’t come out through is tortured lips!

Dear Lord, dear confusion! Save me, oh, somebody – something – please save me!

She rears up above him as she suddenly groans with her final release of passion!

He feels her inner core tightening around his erection as she explodes in her orgasm, and even as his penis begins to deflate rapidly in his horror, even as she trembles violently in her sick pleasure, her eyes flies open in the darkness…

She has no ordinary eyes!

They glow…

 

Her eyes are horizontal lines of pink, red and black!

Filled with evil, determined to destroy!

And then, in the darkness, his final proof is laid bare when her forehead begins to glow…

The mark  of the beast blazed… 666!

Crimson. Terrible. Bloody.

Yaw Boat moans, and stares in horror.

The room is suddenly filled with a terrible green, and a horrified Boat turns his head.

At the same time the lights came on, all of them, as if by an unseen command!

Hideous is floating majestically from the ceiling, falling toward the bed.

 

A dark shadow is outlined against the wall, and Boat’s terror-struck eyes follow it.

There, on the wall, is the three-legged, three-fingered horned Shadow-Thing!

The bedroom door opens then, and Samson Basoah’s giant bulk bends and came through quickly.

BOAT

(weeping helplessly)

Oh, Elly!

Elaine scrambles off his deflated member, grabs a towel and drapes it around her incredible body, and her demon eyes glare at Boat with harsh unfriendliness.

Uncle Samson is suddenly beside the bed.

In a last effort to escape tries to get off the bed, but Hideous settles all around him, tentacles holding him tight, making him unable to move any muscle.

 

One corner of Basoah’s upper lip curls in sheer disdain as he draws back his fist.

UNCLE SAMSON

(disdainfully)

Always the pussy man, ain’t you, you little prick! Beware of pussies, said the cunt to the asshole! You have the gift, kid, but you’re a damn novice. Too bad you won’t get another chance. But to settle your obviously wandering mind, well, let me elucidate you a bit. That light you obviously saw around your old man’s house and around Elaine? Well, that’s the fake …what did you call it, force-field? Yes, I thank that is it. Well, the dark side can also generate one.

 

I heard one damn Unblind we killed about three years ago saying that there is a difference. The real force-field hurts the eye, but the fake one, the one around Elaine and around your father’s house, generated by us, well, they say that one is king of just yellowish and just like a light, not bright enough to hurt the eye. We’re still working on it, though, because the experienced Unblinds do know the difference. But you piece of shit, you don’t know shit, do you?

Samson laughs nastily then, and his fist crashes against Yaw Boat’s jaw.

The darkness engulfs Boat.

He is unconscious.

Season 1 Eps. 43

THE SECOND SIGHT

THE BOSS PLAYERS

Location: THE CHAMBER

Pain.

Yaw Boat is in pain.

From the tips of his toes right to the crown of his head he is in absolute pain.

His body throbs with the fiery agony. Even his eyeballs seem to be aching as if somebody is pushing little pins into them.

But the fulcrum of pain is situated at his shoulder and thigh joints. His shoulders seem stretched, housing a million pain points, and the points where his thighs join his body are throbbing with a fiery vengeance that causes his brain to scream with the sheer torture.

He becomes aware of his surroundings slowly.

 

The darkness he finds himself in recedes degree by little degree. He is first aware of dim light, and then it seems to brighten. Boat tries to move his head, but he has a terrible headache, and keeping still makes the pain settle down to a barely bearable rhythm.

His jaw feels as if it belongs to a giant; it is that swollen.

Finally he is aware that he is spread-eagled on some sort of structure. His wrists and ankles are tied securely. Summoning a great inner strength, Yaw Boat opens eyes.

He sees that he is completely naked, tied to an X-shaped golden structure fixed upon a sort of pedestal that is raised several inches off the floor.

He is lying on his back on the X-shaped contraption, staring at the ceiling.

The same ceiling with its horrible murals of profane biblical presentations.

He is back in the chamber of horrors.

Funky Grounds come to life!

 

The six shrivelled bodies forming the macabre cross hanging from the ceiling are now right above him; dry corpses that depicts the various stages of a man’s life; sunken eyes look at him out of the skull-like faces, grimacing teeth bared menacingly in an eternal snarl of hatred.

There are two golden beds on each side of Boat.

The one on his right is neatly laid, the white sheets silky and expensive. It is unoccupied.

The one on his left is also neatly laid, but on it is the terrible corpse of the housekeeper who has seduced him, Miss Naana.

Below him will be the golden throne and the golden crown – the crown that is resting on three human skulls – and way beyond that throne will be the gigantic black anaconda he has fled from.

The chamber is very bright.

He can see tens of candles – of different sizes, colours and shapes – lit and stuck into the walls all around.

 

Around the strange contraption he is tied to are majestic golden chairs, arranged in a perfect circle. They are close together, and Boat guesses they will number about twenty.

The room is smoky and hazy.

The pungent scent of burning incense assaults his nasal cavities, and he sneezes once.

Boat tries to jerk his wrists and ankles free of the handcuffs holding him, but they do not budge; it will take keys to free him.

Somewhere beyond his head he can hear a babble of voices crooning, moaning, and whispering unintelligible words in a talk-sing chanting that is more frightening than anything he has seen in the room.

Boat admits to himself that he is in deep hell, something far above his comprehension, and unless some divine intervention occurs, and soon, he will be a goner.

His world has come crumbling around him in a shower of elegant deceit and explosive betrayal.

 

His well-ordered life has turned out to be nothing more than a sham, a vanity of vanities, a useless transition that is engineered to end in death.

Everything has been stacked carefully, mapped out in such a way that he has had no inkling of what is happening. Everyone he has ever loved and trusted has turned out to be a major player in a game with stakes so high that it reaches to heaven… and hell.

Where will help come from now?

Here he is, helpless and absolutely abandoned. The most terrible thing is that he doesn’t know what is going to happen to him, or he has to do!

It is a confusing maze filled with dead-ends at every turn.

Boat is aware that he is becoming weaker and weaker.

 

He is drowsy, and very light-hearted, as if he has smoked ten joints of weed. Is it all a part of it, a weakening of his body and soul, a kind of savage preparation that will take him to the next level of some diabolical plan?

He has found Funky Grounds at last… and it has fangs, as he had suspected it would!

At long last the maddening chanting stops.

Yaw Boat feels totally deflated now, and it takes a real effort just to move his head. He wonders whether it is due to the smoke from the incense. Bob had once told him that there is a particular brand of incense from India that can floor a man for days; some folks actually got their kicks from getting stoned on the stuff.

And Boat feels stoned!

It tales a Herculean effort just to string his thoughts together now. Everything has become hazy, indistinct, more un-firm.

 

The great panic has vanished, and in its place he feels only exhaustion and a great need to sleep and never wake up again. There is so much a man can do to stay afloat, and sometimes when all has been done, and helplessness still reigns supreme, the best solution – as horrible as it seems – is lethargy, passiveness, and surrender.

Suddenly he becomes aware that the golden chairs around him are shifting positions, and he stares at them in total incomprehension.

It takes him a moment longer to realize that they are indeed not moving, but that the strange thing he is handcuffed to is rather rotating slowly, turning towards the golden throne.

The beds on either side of are moving too, turning in tune with the one Boat is lying on.

Finally it turns round one hundred and eighty degrees, and Boat finds himself staring at them for the first time.

The man on the huge golden throne is his father. He is dressed in a majestic all-white costume, a kind of flowing gown that reaches to his ankles. His throne is a glittering mass of gold and diamonds.

 

On each side of him are about ten people, men and women, wearing simple, straight white gowns. The material is filmy, and it appears they are naked beneath the costumes.

Sitting at Joe Boat’s feet is Elaine.

She is totally nude, and she is holding the magnificent golden crown Boat has seen on his first visit to the chamber, the crown that had been supported by the three human skulls.

Her thighs are pressed together, and her eyes seem too huge and bright in the candlelight.

Has she been crying, or was it just that she is also stoned deep? Sitting cross-legged in front of her is the muscular body of Samson Basoah, totally nude too. Blood drips from fresh terrible grooves on his body, forming a thick pool around his thighs. He seems to have been poked or cut deeply all over his body, and the designs on his chest and down his stomach seemed to be the signs of the twelve zodiacal constellations.

 

Boat suppresses a sudden giggle; it seems to him that the huge giant Samson Basoah is the least on the scale of importance on the Devil’s ladder.

He is just a useless stooge whose body surface is the canvas for the Devil’s artists who use knives and staves as brushes. Serves the bastard right, Boat thinks, and would’ve giggled had the effort not brought unbearable pain to his lips and gums.

Beyond the throne is the undulating mass of the terrible anaconda.

 

Boat’s wearied gaze traces it, and he realizes with shock that its body seems to have gone round the whole terrible dome, circling it completely now. Its flat head is now barely discernible in the shadows not reached by the candlelight. Its head is raised, no doubt, and its ugly black eyes roves the temple, missing nothing.

Suddenly, as if by some hidden command all of them begin to chant and sway again, their faces became vacant, taking on the vacuous expressions of morons, and then their foreheads begin to blaze the mark of the beast, and their eyes changed colours instantly.

Uncle Samson is now on his feet.

He reaches out blindly, tottering like one of the zombies in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and he picks up Elaine in his powerful arms.

There is a break – a falter – in the chanting voices for a moment, and Boat looks up to realize that they are all staring rather sternly at him with their demonic eyes.

 

Still in a trance, Uncle Samson puts Elaine down on the empty bed on Boat’s right side. He takes the golden crown from her and puts it on Boat’s head.

Boat shakes his head in a gesture he thinks is strong, but in reality it is a very feeble effort; the crown stays on my head.

Now the men and women in the white gowns approach, and Yaw Boat’s shock as he recognizes some of them is so profound that for a moment the fog almost clears completely, and his mind becomes more lucid than the dawn of day.

Individually they are awesome – kings and queens in their own rights.

They are all there.

From famous Prime Ministers and economists to inventors, from all over the world. Men and women of influence, of money, of power!

This is a collection of some of the core powerhouses of the world!

 

They look totally moronic now with their ugly eyes and blazing foreheads. Their bodies move irregularly, erratically, like mannequins being manipulated by a master hand.

Deep in them, lurking like thieves, are inhuman beings – vicious demons that are capable of the most heinous deeds.

They sit down on the golden chairs all around Boat in a straight stiff manner, arms outstretched and palms outward, facing downwards.

They still chant in their strange talk-sing voices.

Samson Basoah is holding a little key now and he proceeds to unlock Boat’s left wrist which he ties to the shrivelled bony wrist of the corpse with a long piece of white nylon cord.

Next he unlocks Boat’s right wrist and ties it to the left wrist of Elaine, who is sobbing silently now, her face radiant with an inner joy only she feels, overcome by an emotional bliss so profound it makes her look like an angel, and if Boat could have moved he would’ve kicked her so hard that her expression would’ve slink out of her like a second skeleton.

Boat hates her that fiercely.

 

He is aware that the final stages what Paul Anderson had warned him is in progress, but he is too woozy in the head to do anything about it except cry.

His soul is in anguish within him, struggling for freedom, wailing to be set free.

The deep pain comes out in the form of choked tears that rolls down his face in torrents.

He doesn’t wail, or moan, or even make any sound. As his mind searches frantically for ways out of the demonic abyss he is in, the tears just dam up behind his eyes, nostrils and throat, causing painful pressures that burst out finally in great tears exploding out of his eyes like waterfalls.

The chanting stops abruptly, and Joe Boat gets to his feet slowly. His ugly rainbow eyes bear into his son, and his mouth opens gloatingly in a sinister snarl.

Boat sees that he is losing his colour, his skin darkening rapidly, becoming darker and rougher.

 

Boat watches, and even in his agonized stupor what happens next is so frightening that the scream rises in his throat and he would have screamed his way into the Guinness book of records has it not been the fact that his voice, currently, is not in any state to make sounds.

Even so, what sees kills something inside him.

With his eyes popping out, his mouth open and his breath suspended, he knows without a shred of a doubt that he is witnessing something that will give him nightmares forever.

 

He also knows, again without a shred of doubt, that nothing will ever scare him again like the sight of Joe Boat at that particular moment!

His father is losing all semblance of a human being!

It is like the horror he has experienced with Ralph Stebbins, but this is more horrible!

Joe Boat’s mouth explodes out into a long snout, teeth yellow and dripping goo, and then the top of his head falls open, and the long curved horn emerges.

His upper body thickens inside the white gown, and his arms elongates, becoming bigger and hairier until the bones in there crackles, fitting, grating, banging and suddenly his fingers are only three on each hand.

His body bounces up, and Boat sees him sprouting three thick legs, hairy and sturdy, and beast-like.

The Shadow-Thing personified!

This is the Shadow-Thing in reality!

The chanting around me had risen to a crescendo.

 

The boss players around him, the movers and shakers of the world, have also changed!

They are shaking violently as if they are at the epicentre of the world’s most violent earthquake.

They have changed into various forms of the uglies, their mouths foaming as their heads shake in an impossible fashion.

In his horrified stupor Boat sees that Uncle Samson is holding a long-bladed ugly knife in his right hand, and a huge earthenware pot in the other.

Only him and Elaine are wearing the mark of the beasts but have not physically transformed into any nightmarish monsters.

Samson stands at the head of the beds, and then the knife in his hand moves down, and Boat feels a sharp pain on his left wrist where it is joined to the corpse of Miss Naana.

 

UNCLE SAMSON

(in a booming voice)

From Death to Ashes to Initiation!

He brings the pot low to catch the blood dripping from the cut.

After a moment he moves to Boat’s right and again he feels the pain again, this time on the point where Boat is joined to Elaine.

UNCLE SAMSON

To Life and Fulfilment!

Again their mingled blood drips into the pot.

Instantly the corpse of the housekeeper bursts into flames.

Boat feels the heat, but he does not feel pain as his left arm dangled uselessly, free from his bond with the woman who has broken his virginity.

 

Uncle Samson is now moving around the people – no, monsters – around Boat, slashing each across the top of the right wrist and bringing the pot low to receive droplets of blood.

They are wailing uncontrollably now, and the noise finds its way into Boat’s confusion… unnerving, sickening, brutal, pure and latent evil!

Uncle Samson drops the knife after he has cut each one present except Elaine and walks quickly up to the thing that had been Joe Boat.

The horned beast takes the pot, shakes it gently for a moment, and then brings it to his lips, lapping hungrily and with evident relish.

Boat’s stomach roils with disgust, and he dry-retches weakly, feeling his intestines knotting and bunching up with great disgust.

Season 1 Eps. 44

THE SECOND SIGHT

THE INITIATIONS

Location: THE CHAMBER

When the pot is empty the horned monster drops it, and it shattered to smithereens around his feet.

He laughs, a terrible booming sound that reverberates around the chamber, causing Boat’s ears to hurt.

JOE BOAT MONSTER

(in a thunderous evil voice)

COME YE UNTO ME, MINIONS!

He screams, and his voice isn’t Joe Boat’s voice at all but a great thumping devilish sound that could’ve frozen the blood of the Lucifer himself.

The things which had once been people of incredible standing in society, the Boss Players, obeys him!

 

A lot of scary, smoky, white howling things shoots out from the other monsters and dash into the Joe Boat Monster.

These are indistinct, smoky, frightening, screaming and hissing things!

They emerge in hundreds, screeching horribly, flying into the horned beast, hitting him from all sides and entering, never to come out again, forming a part of it.. for eternity!

That is why his eyes have had rainbow colours!

It is not just one demon, but a host of them!

A legion!

What Yaw Boat is witnessing now is a sight that could’ve made any human go mad instantly.

 

He can see glimpses of those infernally nasty faces of the things, and he shuts his eyes tightly, unable to take it anymore.

They are many, in thousands, and it seems as if it will never end. They float all around Boat, leaving their hosts and becoming a part of the demon in Joe Boat.

Their frantic screeches and wailing alone is enough to drive a man crazy.

The Thing that had been Joe Boat shakes  from all sides as the demons disappear into him as if buffeted by a strong wind.

And then, mercifully, the terrible noise finally stops, and silence reigns.

Suddenly a soft cloth is pressed against Boat’s mouth and nostrils. It is Basoah.

Yaw Boat struggles briefly, weakly… but to no avail.

Chloroform.

 

He slips into absolute darkness.

PASSIONS

Yaw Boat comes out of the restricting confines of the drug slowly.

He doesn’t move, but allows awareness to seep slowly through him.

Boat realizes that he is sitting upright now, but his hands and legs are strapped. His head is down, his chin cradling the top of his chest.

He can see through the slits of his eyes that he is now dressed in the same bulbous filmy white gowns they had been wearing.

He is now sitting on a throne, his arms and legs strapped firmly but not too tightly. Boat can make out the legs of another throne opposite him, and as he lifts his head slowly he sees that his father is occupying it.

At first Joe Boat does not that his son is looking at him.

 

He is dressed in an expensive white suit, and his legs are crossed. His body is turned half-way on the throne, his forehead resting on the V of forefinger and thumb of his left hand.

His face, in fairness, looks absolutely pained and distressed, and there is the sheen of tears on his cheeks.

They are still in the underground chamber – Funky Grounds – but it is clean now. All the hideous corpses, skeletons and other artefacts have been removed. The snake is gone.

Even the grotesque drawings have been hurriedly painted over.

The chamber is virtually empty except for the two of them, father and son.

Cold floor, cold walls… two Boats.

With a sick heart Boat wonders what it all means.

His heart is a hollow pain in his chest.

 

What has happened now? Is it all over? Is he now a Devil’s apprentice? Worse, is his body now inhabited by one of those disgusting things? Is everything too late for him?

Is he now going to have the mark of the beast on his forehead?

It seems so, on the evidence of what he is seeing.

Time has run out for you! Even as you read this, a demon of old is ready to take over your body and your soul…

Anderson!

Has his fate – by some process he still knows nothing about – been sealed? Has he become an unwilling disciple of whatever dark forces this man deals in?

And yet, as Boat looks at that stressed face opposite him, he realizes that he still can’t hate his father.

 

He feels anger and bitterness, and he feels absolutely betrayed. Things might probably never be the same again between them, but he is still his father, a man who has given him love, even if for a dark purpose, and who has spared the rod as a result of that love.

A man who has been by his side, and been a great father, to all intents and purposes, and has been there, available for him whenever he needed him.

Boat loves his father, and if Joe Boat has drawn him into whatever hell he is dabbling in, Boat will never forgive him, and he will never go near him again.

Let Joe Boat live with that on his conscience.

That will be punishment enough.

But Boat can never hate him.

Joe Boat lifts his head, and their eyes meet.

His face broke instantly into painful lines, and tears fall down his cheeks slowly. Several times he tries to speak, but his lips only tremble, and nothing comes out.

 

After a while he takes out a huge handkerchief and wipes his face. He takes a shuddering breath, and then he tries to look at his young son squarely in the eyes.

JOE BOAT

(haltingly, painfully)

Please, Yaw! Please don’t look at me like that, son.

Boat says nothing. He just stares at him, and yes, his gaze is bitter because it reflects the seething poison in his heart.

JOE BOAT

(softly)

I’m sorry, my boy. I owe you an explanation.

BOAT

(heartbreakingly)

How did my mother die? Did you kill her? Like Miss Naana?

It floors Joe Boat.

He looks absolutely devastated.

 

His face is haunted as his eyes take on a faraway look, seeing things that plagues only him.

What happened next is something Boat has never seen before. His whole face suddenly crumbles, ravaged by a savage self-loathing and nightmarish remorse, and Boat’s heart sinks with a fearful agony, acutely aware that there is indeed a mystery surrounding his mother’s death, and she hasn’t died after delivery, like his father has told him.

When Joe Boat speaks, his words are those of a broken man, laying himself open, barring his soul to find a little peace for years of living with the guilt.

JOE BOAT

(softly)

I loved your mother, son. She was my life, the air I breathed. But I won’t begin there. Let me begin from the beginning, son. You’ve always known that my parents – your grandparents – died in a motor accident when I was a boy. Well, that’s not the truth, son. I never knew my parents. I grew up in an orphanage.

 

Here it is at last… the truth!

And Boat is scared.

It doesn’t sound a big deal, really. You grew up knowing your grand folks bought it in some freak motor crash, and then you are told that was not the case after all. No big deal, right?

Wrong. It scares the living bejesus out of Yaw Boat.

JOE BOAT

A group of prisoners cleaning a sewage system, I was told, found me in the gutter crying, my umbilical cord still uncut, and traces of amniotic fluid and blood still on me. Evidently, the parents who gave birth to me hated me enough to dump me in a sewer immediately I was born.

He pauses and takes a shuddering breath. Boat can see the pain on his face as he dredges up ghosts long buried and memories that have festered in his soul for decades.

 

JOE BOAT

I have always wondered who they were. Was my mother a mistress, or was she a whore who didn’t want a baby? Was she a young girl scared to keep a baby? Were my parents married? Did my father reject me? Did she, perchance, die during childbirth and an irresponsible parent or husband or boyfriend, even mother, dumped me in a gutter? You could ask a million questions and, believe me, it wasn’t easy growing up in an orphanage with things like that plaguing your mind. The orphanage itself was hell. The Manager was… was a very sick man. A very, very sick man.

 

His face is covered with a trace of sweat now.

His pain is almost tangible, something you could almost feel caressing your skin. He has always been a resolute man, stoic sometimes, not easily given to emotions.

He is only passionate when he is on the pulpit, extolling the Christian virtue, or when driving a hard bargain and going in for the kill on a business deal. Always reliable, always clean, and now Boat can feel his pain and know what is coming, and quite suddenly he doesn’t want to be a part of that history and to know that part he his father has hidden from him for so long.

 

JOE BOAT

That manager did a lot of bad things to the young boys in the orphanage. He had other terrible friends too… homosexuals and paedophiles. They not only used us for their sinful pleasures, but the manager gained from it by taking huge sums of money from his clientele and allowing them to abuse the children.

Yaw Boat is not only chagrined, but terribly horrified.

He can just imagine him then.

 

Joe Boat must have been a very pretty young boy then, and he might have suffered harder than any in the hands of a homosexual manager and his pervert clientele.

Yaw Boat feels equal parts of shame and compassion for his father for what he must have gone through, and somehow Boat finds it hard sustaining his earlier level of disappointment in his father.

JOE BOAT

(softly)

That man was a big man. The biggest man I’ve ever seen, and he hurt me a great deal. One night, however, he was quite drunk, and he took me to his quarters. That night he wanted something… really, really filthy. I could not do it, and he was incensed with fury and began to beat me. He would’ve killed me that night. He was a baseball freak, and had lots of paraphernalia on the game in a glass case, some autographed by some baseball greats.

 

It was his most prized possessions. During the agony of his assault that night he tossed me, quite by accident, into this glass case, and the baseball bats spilled out. He was alarmed and stopped his assault to save his idols. It made me mad, I guess, to see him doing that whilst I was lying on the floor half-dead, bleeding from multiple cuts I had sustained from his assault and from being cut by shards of broken glass.

His pause is longer this time, and his breathing is laboured, his face tortured. He leans forward, props his elbows on his thighs, laces his fingers into an inverted V, and put his forehead on it.

Boat says nothing; it isn’t the kind of story that you hurried. Secondly he is too shocked to force his father to continue.

 

JOE BOAT

I went mad, son, yes I did. I picked up one of the bats and by the time other staff smashed down the door and came in, his drunken screams have turned to silent pleas, whimpers and shudders. He died as they were taking him to hospital. His head was too bashed in, you see. I was traumatized by that incident, especially after the cops came for me, and the court hearings that followed.

 

One evening, before real court case began in the juvenile court, a man came to me whilst I was I was in police cells. He told me he read my story in the newspapers, and he had been very touched by it. He wanted to help me, and so he had appointed his team of lawyers to defend me. That man was rich and powerful. His name was Simon Boat.

 

Yaw Boat nods slowly with understanding.

BOAT

(softly)

Yeah. Simon Boat. My supposed grandfather.

 

JOE BOAT

Yes, the man I said was your grandfather. His lawyers were able to convince other victims whose terrible tales led to the beginning of a great scandal because most of the men mentioned by the kids were powerful men in society. The arrests were sweeping. When I was found innocent Simon adopted me and changed my name from Joshua 27 – you know, the name I was given at the orphanage; I was the twenty-seventh boy to be named Joshua in the orphanage – to Joe Boat.

Yaw Boat looks at his father sadly.

 

BOAT

Let me guess, he introduced you to this… this evil world, didn’t he, Dad?

Joe Boat nods and sighs miserably, his face haunted and distraught.

JOE BOAT

He fulfilled my inner craving to be accepted and loved. He had lots of money, and he sent me to the best schools. Truth was, he had no family, and he showered all his love on me. He was my father, and for the first time in my life I was very happy. I felt alive and wanted, and my life was bliss. Fifteen years later, on his deathbed, he told me a most terrible thing.

 

Simon Boat had told his young adopted son that he was a vessel, and that for more than thirty years his body had been possessed by a demon of old that had been living on earth for generations.

That demon had lived in fathers and sons for thousands of years. Simon Boat’s father had been a vessel for the demon, and on his death Simon had been the chosen one whose body was needed for the demon to live through another lifetime. It was now the turn of the young man from the orphanage to let his body become a vessel so that the whole awful cycle could go on.

 

Joe Boat had of course been really scared and he had refused to be a part of it, but the old man assured him that the he would never feel the presence of the demon in him. He would never even remember that he was possessed after a little time, but he would be rich and powerful, and would have the world at his feet.

Joe Boat had had no choice simply because he dreaded going back to the life of poverty, loneliness and degradation. He had reluctantly accepted the conditions attached. After all, he erroneously thought, he would rarely feel the presence of the demon, and he could enjoy life for eternity.

Power and wealth at a comparatively zero cost.

 

BOAT

(horrified)

But there was a price, wasn’t it, Dad? I am the cost – the only real cost – aren’t I? Me, your own flesh, your son. A form of rotating evil, handed down the family, a freaky father-to-son inheritance, all other issues incidental, isn’t it?

As he speaks tears well up in Boat’s eyes and slowly spills down his cheeks.

Joe Boat’s face is frantic, destroyed. He only wants to be accepted and loved by his only son, and not to be hated.

In that instant Yaw Boat feels the bond between them, a bond that is as invisible as it is strong: the bond between parent and child.

And in the madness that Boat finds himself in, that bond represents everything good; sanity, hope, faith and life.

Yaw Boat would have touched his father then if he could, and he could have gladly wept on his shoulder. Now things are becoming a little clearer, and his dislike of his father is ebbing away a little at a time.

 

Boat wants so much to speak, to assure him that he is still his son, but somehow, without the powerful magic of physical contact, his tongue remains glued to the roof of his mouth, and his eyes, expresses none of the emotional flood he is being inundated with.

Joe Boat looks away at last, breaking the power of that moment. The breath he exhales is shuddering, rocking his huge frame.

To Be Continued…

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