In the darkness of night there is always a speck of light in a blacked out room. It may remain unseen by the human eye, but it is there none the less. A gateway, a passage from another world not ours and it brings nightmares and dreams filled with dread and uncertainty. I know, I have seen the light, I have endured the terror that it brings. I cannot sleep like I used to, don’t want to drift into unconsciousness during the midnight hours for fear of what I might see. A horror story cliché you may think. Indeed, that maybe the case, but that’s how this scenario presents itself. I know the truth. I have witnessed the aggressive evil that flicker of light brings. It can devour your soul and destroy your mind. Read the story, beware of the darkness in your own bedroom and that tiny glow that appears from nowhere, it might just have a sting hidden somewhere inside.

My mother would stand at the bottom of the bed, the duvet as always pulled tight around my neck keeping the cold away. She never said anything, not one word came out of that mouth, never moved from the same spot night after night. Was I afraid, of course I was, terrified at first, but then shocked would be a better description of my mental state. She died twelve years ago, so why was she there?

I cannot move whilst she remains in view. Arms are locked, legs pinned solid under the covers, beads of sweat trickle across my forehead. It scares me, it shouldn’t happen because it’s not normal. Am I dreaming, having hallucinations or some mental breakdown as I remain motionless fixed like a statue with the weight of a hundred bricks pressing down on me. It lasts but two minutes, maybe less, maybe more, the clock at my bedside remains out of view, and then the sensation is gone leaving dead arms and legs tingling wildly . Normality returns and she is gone, filtered away into the darkness, sucked into that pin prick of light I see somewhere in the distance on the opposite wall,

Is it the moon creating a vague reflection from a shiny source I cannot see? I don’t know, but leap from bed and take a look. The wall is papered, its pattern is embossed and dark, there could be no light source, no reflection. It must be my imagination tricking the sleepy tentacles caressing my brain. I think no more about it and return to the warmth of the covers, pulling them around my shoulders once more and try to drift back to sleep. It never works, sleeps stays away because I cannot forfeit the notion I am possessed, there is some legacy of ghostly virtue visiting me. It’s my mother for God’s sake, but why? There is no message, no warning, nothing but a cold comfort visitation that fills me with fear. There has to be a purpose, she would never come to me for no reason. It leaves me weary, night after night the same scenario and little sleep. Sometimes my temper rages, I am not the man I used to be. Is this the message, the meaning of the apparition, that I must look at my inner self to understand my true purpose. Am I a bad person, have I wronged people without understanding the unique nature of my personality. Who knows, not me and then I think of Dickens Christmas Carol. Maybe this is my time for reflection?

The thing that really concerns me most is that I have undergone a modified personality over the past few months, almost a changeling of sorts, prone to aggressive outbursts and arguments over trivial comments and actions. It has become an endless tirade of abuse for work colleagues and any friends that care to linger through affection. They leave me, want nothing of my time or companionship. I have become a pariah. I hit one the other day over nothing, should I feel ashamed, quite the reverse I harbour no remorse, no desire to be friends with my unfriended friend, there is much more of a yearning to strike, to maim – who do these people think they are – above me, more refined and eloquent and intellectually superior? I think not. To cross me now is to feel my wrath.

My father left us early on, I was just a child and he was almost invisible, like the wind changing direction with each new day. He met my mother in the circus. She was a side show artist, a mystic of some reputation, a fortune teller dressed in gypsy clothes and hair tied with scarves and bangles. There were celebrities cueing at her tent door for glimpses of the future. Will my popularity survive, are my children going to grow up level-headed and free from drugs and criminality they ask. She hated the prospect, the pomposity and arrogance of those so called “stars” who honestly conspired to be better than the rest of working-class folk. Disillusioned in every way, she said, but do we really care? Not now, but fifty years ago it was different, the world has changed, celebrity is a by word for TV appearances and minor social media events and influence. We can all be celebrities if we can be bothered.

Bulldog Chambers was my father, a strongman act, a clown and occasional ringmaster when required if Jack Sullivan was incapacitated from his alcoholic indulgence and heroin addiction. Mother must have loved him, they married, so that was a good start I guess. A mystic and a clown, hilarious if you think about it, but it worked and then I came along. Just me, only me, no other siblings and have I acquired some part of the gift that my mother possessed? I always assumed it was fake, a charade to extract money from an excitable public willing to trade silver for a glimpse of the future. She never told me about the past though, the delving into the occult and raising the dead. That is something I discovered after moving personal belongings from her home and some letters I’d read from patrons across the globe and to my horror infamous names I recognised. Aleister Crowley amongst many other benefactors. It occurred to me at the time that the relationship I had with my parents and in particularly with my mother, there remained many questions unanswered and ambiguity over facts I did not know. It appeared I didn’t know them at all – there seemed to be secrets and lies at every corner post of my life.

She came calling again last night, it was the seventh night in a row. There is little fear in me as I wake and her ghostly apparition evolves from the darkest corners of the room. There appears to be no intent to harm me as I lay there unable to move in the prison of my bed as I’m sure it would have taken place by now. I looked it up yesterday, it’s called sleep paralysis. Not that that changes the question of her appearance but purely the origin of its creation and is extremely commonplace, something most people experience at some point in their lives. Nothing to worry about my medical dictionary advised.  It cropped up in another aggressive conversation ( one more I had no control over ) with work colleagues, they made fun of my discontent saying that it’s also known as “old hag syndrome” because dark spectres come sitting on your chest staring deep into your soul sucking the life out of you. If my mother had the ridiculous notion to terrorise me then I can say it would never be in her mental capacity to do so and at the worst of times she was never an old hag, but those comments sent a shiver down my spine as you never know with black arts when demons can become malevolent. My lasting memory of her is always of a beautiful human being, though seeing her dressed in black and rags like a banshee from the depths of hell is not what I choose to remember.

On the twelfth night it changed, she was closer, almost at the side of the bed and beckoned me with a constant wave of her arms. It dawned on me I could move, the paralysis was over, but she still remained like an ogre from some cheap B horror movie and I hid under the covers scared to ever look into those cold eyes, that icy feeling forever in my stomach and panic running circles around my brain as the fear of her as a monster returned. I told her “Leave, go haunt someone else.” Screamed at the black carcass. “What do you want from me mother?” She just continued to motion me towards her. Should I now be afraid of my mother? When my senses returned I had the rarest of feelings, considering that I know that face, even with its grime and darkness that maybe this was not my mother at all, but some imposter donning her semblance to terrify me for reasons still unknown. A black monster wrapped up in disguise, pulling me inside for slavery, another soul on the roster of Satan’s tally. Then it was gone and all I saw was the same pin prick of light on the opposing wall flickering and then darkness as if it was a bulb turned off.

There was some work holiday due to me, so I took time off and brought down more boxes of my mother’s old belongings from the loft and laid the contents out on the living room table. Bundles of letters, books and journals I had taken little notice of following her death but had haphazardly wrapped up in boxes as I cleared the house and hadn’t touched in over a decade. Secrets and lies, things that should be left alone, time will tell. I guessed the truth would be hidden somewhere in these files for me to uncover and I set to the task with trepidation and dread at what may unfold as I turned over the pages in insidious discovery.

It became clear remarkably early from the notes mother left me that she was not just a hack ‘mystic’ but had some extraordinary ability in contacting the dead. It was a gift kept secret from all but a few, as the social attitude then, as it is now, classed those individuals as fakes and charlatans on a money-making roundabout. There were letters from film and TV personalities I knew and were in the public eye during that time decades ago. The volume of these was staggering, recommendations for meetings, thank you notes and perpetual gifts that I never knew about. To my disbelief I read of liaisons, love letters, hearts and valentines, pleadings and regrets. The journals and papers said it all, she was not one to waste a single word of her emotions and feelings where love and passion were concerned.

After many hours searching I came across a spectacular piece of detail that took my breath away, shook me to the core of belief and it dawned on me that maybe I am not the person I thought I was, not my father’s son. One name cropped up endlessly during those years in the sixties when my mother was at the pinnacle of her career and at that time a minor celebrity on TV herself. That person was the Baron with many letters signed in the most delicate of script, always in ink. A pseudonym I presumed that had signed off a tidy bundle of letters neatly wrapped with red ribbon and a dried single rose inserted carefully through the knot. It was more than obvious there was special meaning inside these written words, but I laid them to one side having sight of only a small number. They could wait, but suspicions were more than aroused that my mother had love affairs during this time and might be the reason my ‘father’ disappeared.

I continued to search randomly those endless containers and came across a birth certificate in one of them. The name on it was mine, the document crumpled and tattered as if it had been screwed up and discarded but it had slipped out of the bundle easily as if it was waiting for my hand. There it was staring me in the face – name and surname of father and it was blank, nothing, an empty box. It suddenly felt as if my life had fallen apart, had no meaning because I was a bastard, a boy without a father and worst of all my mother had lied and kept that secret inside her till the day she died and beyond. I needed the truth, I needed to contact her, have that discussion to put this sudden rage and indifference aside. How do I do that, was that why she came to me every night – redemption and sudden regret for a past that need reconciliation?

On the fourteenth night I awoke sharply, the woman was floating directly above me looking deep into my eyes. I could smell her feted breath and decaying carcass. she must have seen the terror I felt. I couldn’t close them or move a muscle as the pressure on me was intense and the look on her face changed with every breath I took from sadness to pain and an occasional smile and all the time those hands opening and closing like a demand for prayer. It passed in minutes like it always did and she was gone as if her time was ticking away like the portal of light on the opposing wall, her entrance and exit I couldn’t see was in fear of closure trapping her on the wrong side of darkness.

As the days of my holiday passed there was a fever in me to end the secret of my childhood. I searched everything, the journals, the letters in the hope of discovery. Lastly I fully opened the knotted love letters. They always started with Dear Ivan’, I cross referenced all the letters and the replies to match the dates and the common denominator was they were all signed ‘yours affectionately Baron’. There was a further discovery one wet afternoon as the darkness of the day was drawing in around me. A book in the bottom of one box that I’d missed as it was covered in cloth bound with string as though it was historic, a reference of something finished and no longer required. On opening the thing, I realised this was the moment of truth, holding details I had been craving the whole of the last week. Drawings and diagrams of ancient symbolic design I had no reference of except to think they were used with the inexplicable words that ran alongside them. Initially, it made me giggle as it was reminiscent of corny horror movie scenes I’d seen a million times in old films, the talk of demons and raising demonic entities. So many pages, scribblings, paragraphs crossed out and rewritten and then a blank page and next to it in bold black ink ‘It is done – the boy must never know’. Clearly there had been a falling out, a creation that caused finality, an acrimonious ending to an affair that had raged passionately for years. Ivan Popescu, also known as ‘Baron’ was my father, absent maybe but none the less real. Tucked away at the back of the volume was a letter of goodbye from Ivan, it did not say why they had parted and that maybe a secret never to be told, but his parting line on the letter read ‘if all else fails me, then promise dearest love that you will protect our child’. In all her journals there was never another entry about Ivan, the last one dated 26^th November 1965 simply read ‘it is over, he has returned’.

The temporal fever in me is growing worse, I have not returned to work. I called them said I was sick and that a further few days of rest may help. Hours pass in the darkened corridors of this old house of which I have no recollection. The memory of those travels, If I have left the house are non-existent. What worries me now is this thing appears to be ruling me, taking over, some moments are lucid but many hours lost are remarkable as I will wake from this fog and murky time sweating, as if from exertion or escape from something. On most of these occasions I have an overcoat around me, which indicates I have been away from the house. This is a greater worry than my motherly apparition as I have no knowledge of my travels or deeds if I have committed any. At least I see my mother, it may be pure hallucination, a figment of a delusional mind, but I remember every moment as terrifying as it can be. This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde abomination is crippling my mental state even further than I care to discuss with you.

Whenever I saw her as the long nights passed and I’d woken with the grizzly apparition staring into my face or occasionally back at the bottom of the bed, one thing greatly puzzled me. The prayer motion, the closing and opening of hands made no sense as I felt we were well beyond praying to God for help, it was something else and then I remembered the game charades from childhood – the guessing game, film, play or book? She was telling me to look in a book and a persistent thought echoed in my head like the lyrics of a song that turns over endlessly in your mind. Had she heard my thoughts, the desire to communicate seemed the obvious action to take as that might provide the answers I need. So I looked, page after page, journals, notebooks and diaries and then there it was right in front of me a book I’d originally cast aside without giving the scripture a second glance. “The Definitive Use of the Ouija Board” by Desmond Rathmell. I had my answer – thank you mother – we shall talk.

Isn’t it always a dark dismal night of rain and thunderous disturbance when the Ouija board is brought out in movies, but I tell you honestly as I drew those curtains closed on the living room windows, there seemed all hell breaking loose outside, with lightening striking vertical in the sky bringing silhouettes of monstrous cloud and shadows into the room. Had I chosen wisely or was this some uncanny message to stop and rethink the whole situation I suspected my mother had a hand in. No – perseverance took control as the box lid almost floated from the container that we’d had hidden away for decades and the pieces cast themselves almost unaided across the dining room table. Did I need to worry as I picked up and placed out the primary parts of the board as lightening flashed across the curtains, rain lashed against the windows and thunder cracked as if the house was its sole epicentre. What had I gotten myself into, I was concerned, but the potential of seeking and understanding the past and the mental affliction crucifying me outweighed any doubt I had over the evening’s events. The show had to go on regardless. As I sat down on the chair and put my hand on the planchette I almost felt she was already there watching and waiting for me to start.

“Is there anybody there?” I asked keeping one eye firmly open, the other closed as I tried to hide that part of my consciousness from the answer I knew was always coming. Nothing. No sound, no table moving or curtains billowing wildly even as the windows remain closed. I was disappointed, I opened both eyes fully and saw something in the watery darkness, a shadow against the wall I was certainly unfamiliar with. My heart raced with dread, not knowing what or who it was, this ink black formation with no defined outline. The dark mass moved, shifted sideways in all its ragged glory towards me out of the shadows, the outline of clothes dragging across the floor like the train of a wedding dress. It made no sound as it inched closer, an arm reached out forever nearer, fingers clawing at the air as if pulling itself towards me, Did I scream? No, it was impossible, there was no sound I could vent which was not paralysed with terror as this thing I could not recognise came creeping towards me. Fright and panic was the notion that stilled my brain as that “thing” gripped my arm and pulled me from the seat I was clinging to with all the strength I had. Under the tattered garment that concealed most of its facial features, a nose, a jaw line escaped the darkness, a lone straggle of hair curled down matted with dust and wet earth. It was my mother, there was no doubt, but voiceless it was, not a sound came from those frozen lips. But she pulled me, tugged hard and I floated. A sensation so strange I feared was an hallucination, a scene from a cliched horror movie, but it’s the truth and I drifted upwards the greater she pulled. Looking below I saw the physical of myself seated and inert in the chair beneath.

There it was, that pin prick of light coming closer as we moved, seemingly larger the nearer we came and us visibly shrinking smaller as that miniscule hole came within touching distance and we passed right through not touching the sides, as if it were as wide as a doorway. No longer a speck of shiny dust on a wall, but a bright landscape I knew all too well. My own room, just the same but a mirror image and down I went into that same chair. I was back, the Ouija board, the teacup I’d used and the half-eaten sandwich and my mother standing next to her favourite chair opposite me just as I remembered her all those years back. A lovely creature she was, fashionable and a woman of warmth and beauty and not the hideous corpse of a monster from the grave that led me to this other world.

She spoke. It was the first time since the appearances began. “Hello son, it’s been a while.”

“Twelve years,” I replied. “I don’t understand.” But it was nice to hear her voice again.

“You’re not supposed to yet, but I’ll explain as quickly as I’m able. Time is important and limited in this other alternative dimension.” She said and sat down opposite me at the table. “You called me with the Ouija and I came via that vehicle, not because of that, but because I needed to. You are in grave danger son, there is an evil inside you growing stronger by the day and it will destroy you once it reaps the energy it needs to emerge.” Her hand touched mine, was it warm, was it cold? I don’t recall but I felt her love like a shiver pass between us.

“I know there’s something,” I said. “I’ve tasted the excesses and needs of it, whatever it is crawling around inside me like a worm eating the heart out of my sensibility. I thought I was going insane. Am I mother? Are you really here or is this just another dream, a mental aberration I can’t control. Are you manipulating me from the other side,” I asked nervous of the answer I might hear. Fearful the black insidious thing I’d seen visiting me would return with a wrong word spoken. “What is all this about mother? Harbouring fear at my bedside endlessly these past long nights, black and ragged like some corpse from the earth.”

“That is what I have become after all these years, desiccated in the ground, shrunken and vile, reduced to a blackened monster that had devoured me in life as it has in death. This,“ she points to the image I see, “is only a mirage to explain the purpose of my appearance to you and you need to listen.”

I wonder what’s coming next and settle down to listen, the unreal room and mother wrapping themselves around me like a comfort blanket, her hand still covering my own in tender gesture.

“Your father didn’t leave us,” she starts to explain, “he escaped, ran for his life to free himself from the shackles of a dangerous man. Had he stayed he would have died a monstrous death. It was better this way.”

I leapt in breaking her gaze. “But you lied, led me to believe a story of a past life I’d never had. My whole history is just a vivid jumble of untruths and a product of your perverse imagination. Isn’t that so mother?” I scream at her jumping up from my seat casting away her hand. “Isn’t that the real truth mother?” She looks at me and I see shame in her eyes, the crinkle of her brow, the downcast curl of her lips. “Ivan Popescu?” I quiz taking the seat back. “Tell me about that lie, because I know the truth there, not the fiction you made up.” My mind is racing with endless questions, but only one comes to the surface. “Who am I mother? Care to tell? All my life I thought I knew and then in a few short hours I realised none of what I thought about the past mattered, because it’s a story you created to save me from the truth. So tell me.” I shout as she tries to touch my hand in sympathy. I push her away anger raging like a fire in my head. “Tell me.”

“We met purely by chance, he had been flown in from his native Romania to attend an event the television network was funding to raise awareness of a documentary they made around the fables and facts of psychic phenomena. Ivan was a big part of it. A celebrity in those days of admired status and we connected immediately. It was like our spirits collided and we became friends immediately and then later . . .”

I interrupt sharply. “I’ve read the letters. I know what you became. That part was very clear . . .”

“Then you know?” She said with down cast eyes.

“Yes, I know. Popescu is my real father, not that phantom circus clown that fled and left us.”

“Bulldog Chambers raised you, took you as his own son. You belonged to him but the Baron was a savage man. He had powers, mystical energy your father couldn’t fight with his strength. But he tried. Oh how he tried, and forgave me all the way for my sins, until he had nothing left to fight with. We had to let him go. It was that or death. There were no second chances with the Baron, he could break you into little pieces in an instant. He was extraordinary that way. Your father left never to return for fear of an untimely death, but I stayed, because I had no choice and you became his and that’s where the story really begins.”

“There was a time when your father and I travelled the towns and cities doing our little acts for the circus and that was a period with little pressure and believe me, we loved each other, that has never been in doubt. But then it all became too easy, a routine night after night with no change and no challenge, the same people traipsing through the door. The same questions about loved ones and the future and will tall dark strangers on horses save them from domestic slavery. Everyone is a romantic son, they need to know the future, the mystery and suspense of passion and longing for excitement in a miserable humdrum life. And then it hit me. I was living the exact same life just like everyone else and I suddenly realised I hated it, every second, every performance, even the touch and love of your father. I too was trapped in a miserable world of routine with no prospect of escape to times more akin to my own nature. So I went looking for a bigger challenge.”

I looked at her almost with forgiveness, but it was not to be at that moment. “So, life was dull and you needed something more in your pathetic existence, so you neglected and dumped everything you had created and those that needed you. Well, how very selfish is that . . . eh mother?” I couldn’t help but challenge her self-centred logic because as a concept it was alien, and I hated her even more for displaying it to me.

“It wasn’t like that,” she continued. “I wanted your father to be a part of it and join the road I was destined to take, but he was wrapped up in tradition, in skills from another time. Circuses were on the decline, nobody found it enticing any longer television was killing it. The diversity, the laughs, the sport and all from the living room and the comfort of your own home on a little box tucked away in a corner. I saw the future in that box and desperately wanted to be a part of it and I worked my way in, however I could and maybe I’m not proud of that but suddenly work flooded in and I had my name illuminated for all to see. Saturday nights, special programs, lights and accolades all for me, your mother, suddenly I was famous, a name to be reckoned with in the world of mystic believers. Then evil creatures, men bent on power and devil worship started creeping out of the floorboards. I was not a charlatan and they knew it, so they stalked me, gathered around like vultures at roadkill with gifts and promises they could never fulfil and naively I fell for it in the worst way possible with a man I felt safe with – Ivan Popescu – The Baron.”

The light in the room was suddenly cloudy, a vibration cast through the spectrum blurring the lines of the furniture. My mother was slowly escaping to obscurity, changing to the black thing I’d seen night after night these past weeks. “What’s going on?” I yelled fearful I might never see her again.

“He’s alive still and he knows and is dragging me back. I said time was important. It will become more difficult now he knows we have spoken. Call me again, he sleeps in the afternoons. He is a sick old man, but still savage and vile with powers that will only die with him. That is the real problem you need to understand.” And then she was gone and I looked at the board across the table spread out before me, it was just as I’d left it. I was back in reality, the noise of the traffic outside, the rain falling heavily and yet I was no wiser to the destiny she spoke of. Was I really in danger? Is this all a dream, the constant pressure I feel in my head, the nausea welling constantly in my stomach? Illness in the family, a tumour, I didn’t know, but as I spent hours studying and pondering my helplessness, it became increasingly clear I was not a well man.

They came knocking at my door but I hid out of sight. They rang my mobile, but I never answered it and finally came a letter. It said I needed to contact my employers, as three weeks had passed without my calling or providing a doctor’s note. I was on the verge of dismissal without further evidence of my illness it stated. Well, damn them. Damn them to hell. I tore it up in a fit of fury and threw the thing on the floor stamping the written paragraphs like they were venomous spiders. Why? Did I care, no I did not, anger had me under its spell. The monster inside was raging again, fighting me and I became terrified that future manifestations of this thing might halt reversal to my true self – or is this my normal persona – I was a worried frightened man.

The internet is the greatest tool, a reference almanac like no other. It filled all my spare moments, those lapses of time between sleep, waking hours and the dreams I ventured into without clear thought they were real or mental fictions, the illusions of a mind suffering the lack of common lucidity. There was little information about Jack Chambers also known as Bulldog Chambers in the circus community, my father in every sense but biologically so. Still, I was curious. All the papers of the day said he disappeared mysteriously never returning to the circus arena. It was reported he may have had gangland connections, some rumours of the Kray twins in one tabloid newspaper and his disappearance may have been the work of a revenge killing by rival factions in the drug world. I never believed that to be true as mother would surely have made some reference and put that record straight. Yet I’d got to the point where I knew her words to me were only half-truths and potentially all lies. Yet, as a vision from the other side of the living world she had no reason to lie, what would be the point of that? She was dead after all and in the grave twelve years gone but what I’d read in those letters and journal painted a grossly different picture to what I’d known before.

The house was becoming a prison, but it couldn’t hold me. I went out under cover of darkness trawling the streets, scouring the uninhabitable areas where the homeless and drug addicted of society roam. Why? I don’t know because there is little memory, no recollection of my time or the deeds good or bad I had conducted. All I know is that it cannot have been for the better management of humanity because there was dirt, filth and more on me when I returned close to the rising of the sun. I’m beginning to hate myself, there is desperation and dread that another night will pass that I cannot recall. What am I doing, what have I done? There is an evil growing under my skin of which I cannot shed. Mother has stopped calling to me of a night, as I am no longer there, but I need her, our business is not concluded.

I find myself sitting at that little wooden table again; it is late afternoon and the curtains are drawn blocking the miserable sunlight from the room. The bulbs above me burn a dull yellow casting watery shadows across the walls. I’m struggling to think straight, my mind is a world of confusion, too many questions and no answers. I thought I hated my mother for everything she lied about, the way she accomplished the celebrity she gained, but I realise in the dreadful atmosphere of that room as the Ouija board lays open before me, she is the only person, although dead and buried, that can lay bare this half opened can of worms. Ha – the irony of that sticks in my throat like a choking plum stone.

“Why are you doing this?” It’s a question burning on my tongue that needs to be asked. She looks at me from across the room and then glides closer, her frame flickers between the mother I remember and the blackened corpse that smacks of reality and the vestiges of the grave she has risen from. It bothers me no longer, I have become numb to the horror of the vision. I just need answers about the past that will halt this creature of fearfulness that I am becoming as each day passes me by. She struggles to speak; it is a voice of gravel and decay that whispers into my ears.

“Because the Baron cannot use you as a weapon to serve the devil. He never loved you, it was just a conclusion of hereditary. You became a means to pass along the devils disciple that now grows darker and darker within you. The love and protection I have for you will never cease, even as I lay in that pit of bones and ash will it stop and that is stronger than any evil I have ever known. We must beat it son, or you will perish and become a shell that houses the most insidious beast you can imagine.”

I must look baffled as I don’t see the connection between myself and disciples of the devil. “This is about saving me isn’t it and redeeming your own miserable guilt, that’s your purpose? The intent you brought with every visit you made to me in the darkness. My saviour, is that what you are, come to release me from the impossible. If this story is the truth then why did you not stop this habitation of my body years ago when you knew the outcome was a terrible infliction on me . . . your only son?”

Behind the decay I can almost see embarrassment evident in her face, then it is gone. “Because I was weak,” she screams angrily. “Your father had departed, I had nothing to fight with and I did not want to lose what I had gained under the wings of Ivan and my own celebrity. He was too strong, too domineering and savage and I was young, naive and pathetic to my selfish needs. I failed you son, but I will not fail you now. You need to listen to me; time is draining away quickly. If the Baron dies you are lost. He lives in a care home under palliative care, his hours are numbered. Death is already at his shoulder pressing to take him. You have to move quickly and hears why . . .“ Then she is gone and I am back in the room of my house alone and fearful.

The reports are non-existent and then, more by luck than digging deep into history one pops up on the screen and reading it brings some consolation of fact. It’s a small piece in the Lincolnshire County News and reads: –

‘The agent for TV celebrity Ivan Popescu (89) today released an update on the health of the world renown mystic and psychic personality stating that his health was deteriorating and he would be moved to St. Martins Hospice in Grantham for end-of-life care.’

That was it, nothing more, but that simple paragraph allowed me to prepare. Now I knew where he was, hoping time was still on my side as the internet piece was dated many days ago and it coincided with the first appearance of my mother. She knew, had been watching the health of her long-lost lover diminish day by day, yet had not the courage to relinquish to me the secret she was guarding. The following night was a further absent memory. Where had I been, what had I done? The blood on my coat told its own story as did the long-handled knife in my inside pocket. But I cast the remorse from my emotions and concentrated on my visit to Grantham, the devil in me would have to bide his time, I just prayed the route to redemption for me would not be troublesome, but those forgotten nights were growing lengthy and the incidents more unrestrained. Maybe I was becoming a ghoul seeking out the lowlifes for personal satisfaction and enjoyment. Maybe I was insane, or this was all just a dream. My God I need help. Comfort and support me Lord, I need your sacrifice. Had I eaten today – for the life in me I cannot recall.

“Because when the Baron dies it fully releases the evil in you and it will eat your soul and you will be no more . . . you will become the Baron. . .  a master of sin and deceit just as he ever was. That was always your destiny, the whole purpose of your existence was to prolong the life of that man. I had no idea when we raised that spirit from the earth. I thought he really loved me for the person I was and I purposefully helped him achieve his goal of everlasting life, but reality was he purely needed me as surrogate. A body to produce a child to pass across his legacy when the time came and I never saw the signs. Innocent sweet woman that I was, I did my duty, fulfilled the needs required of me. I am a fool, but that man will not succeed, he will never take and devour you. Your time is now son and we need to act.” She looked at me with that blackened face and hollowed out eyes. There was no expression I could detect and I had little of an answer to what she said, I was stunned. Not only was my life a lie in the most moral of contexts, but I had been born to serve a purpose, a self-indulgent abandonment of any love from a monster bent on personal enhancement. I was just a vehicle to be used up when the time came with no remorse or preservation of the human being inside. Is there a limit to the hate of a man because I could not detect the threshold between hate and murderous revenge. The fury was raging inside like a fire out of control.

“You have to give it back,” she said. “There is no other way, it can only be passed to a blood relative. Remember that well son, only a blood relative.”

I was still furious, the anger burning up the logic and common sense I knew I was capable of. “Maybe becoming the Baron would serve a better purpose for me mother?” I screamed at her. “Lust, murder, hatred, all the things I was never capable of in my pathetic life as a good citizen. Maybe I would like and cultivate the evil twin that harbours inside me. Perhaps some self-expression to rewrite the holiness of my formative years might do me good eh mother. Do you think so, do you believe I have the capacity and capability to . . . “

Fury suddenly erupts from that decayed husk of a woman and she screams hideously like a banshee. “Hush your mouth boy. Never disrespect what you are and thank the Lord the evil in Ivan never came out in you sooner.” She came closer and I drew in the feted stench of decomposition, the flesh of the lips unfolding as she spoke, teeth blackened and chattering in their gums as she grunted and spoke with difficulty through vocal cords breaking with each passing sentence. “You have been the perfect son, do not betray that legacy. Popescu has to die and so must you.”

I caught the train to Grantham, it was 8.49am and I was tired, the previous night had been long. Another lost memory, the devil in me growing stronger with each day as Ivan Popescu’s life ebbs away. I was fearful I might be too last to save myself from the fate I was born to live as another persona, ultimately the new ‘Baron’. Yet something deep inside warmed to the prospect and I struggled to face the reality that I might be turning to accept and welcome the inevitable. But battle on I must remembering all the words my mother had used to warn me against the incumbent demon. So, the mindset remained – get behind me Satan, you shall not take me today. It was a clear bright day and I almost felt joy peering through the glass of the carriage window at the dreamy landscape as it passed us by. Multicoloured cows in their herds grazing, field after field of crops, tractors silently fulfilling their days work. A mother and child sat close by and two servicemen laughed endlessly at some private joke or antics they’d been a party to. The train stopped at 12.43pm and I left the carriage and stepping into a sunny afternoon with the remnants of the other passengers. Somehow I felt my mother’s presence at my shoulder, but she remained unseen and after a short stroll to stretch the legs I hailed a taxi for the short drive to St. Martin’s Hospice.

Presumably Ivan would have no recognition of me as I was a young child when he departed, but knowing his ability, even on the threshold of death, he would see me coming, with what intent he could only speculate. Hopefully he would assume it was purely to say my goodbyes. A set of magnificent iron gates greets the taxi as it enters the short drive that delivers us to the hospice, an elegant manor house complete with lawns, an ornamental fountain to the front we drive around before I alight to stone steps leading to a set of aged oak doors. A well-dressed woman of mature years greets me as I pass into a reception area with a marble inlaid floor and giant curving staircase that leads to the upper floors.

“Good afternoon,” she says with a pleasant welcoming smile.

“I rang a few days ago. Mr. Popescu he’s a relative of mine, if that okay?” I enquire.

“He already has a guest sir, but you are most welcome to join them. I’ll lead the way if you care to follow.”

Feeling puzzled at who the other visitor might be I tag along. “Lead away, I’m right behind you thanks.” I reply.

The building is large with long well-maintained corridors and several doors leading into other rooms, each numbered with a name tag attached to the frame. I ponder at the cost of staying in such an elegant place but presume Popescu was never short of money earned during his great celebrity days. We turn a few corners then stop outside one door, I read the name attached. Inside my father awaits, a person I cannot recall and feel no emotion towards, he is a total stranger, there is no love between us. At his passing I will not grieve. I shall not shed a tear or feel guilt at missing his life on this earth. He is nothing to me. As the door opens a frail man hooked to a ventilator lays unmoving on a bed. Several monitors bleep and flicker data that a nurse logs onto a pad she holds and then leaves with a quick acknowledgement of my attendance. An elderly gentleman sits at his bedside, his back is the first image I see, he does not turn as I walk in the room.

“Mr. Popescu a visitor to see you,” says the lady receptionist. He briefly turns his head, but there appears to be little or no recognition in his waning eyes. They close and he returns to his inner thoughts.

“I’ll leave you, but please only twenty minutes in the room as I’m sure you’ll understand the difficulty we encounter with end-of-life care sir. As we mentioned briefly on the telephone, we had to increase the morphine dosage, so he may remain unaware of you, but this had to be done to combat the severe cancer pain. Time for him is very limited I’m afraid.” She says looking reticent.

“I fully understand and thank you again.” I reply courteously. She leaves closing the door slowly behind her without making a sound. I walk fully into the centre of the sizeable room and cough slightly to grab attention. The other man on hearing my voice turns on his seat and I freeze on the spot, cold shivers flush through my veins. I must look stunned, it is Jack “Bulldog” Chambers my surrogate father, in the flesh looking unkempt with lank hair brushing against dirty shoulders. The very same man that ran from mother and I many decades ago.

“Hello,” he says loud and clear as though it is just another ordinary family gathering. “Strange we should meet under these circumstances. It’s been a long time coming though eh, son?” He holds out his hand for me to shake in welcome and gratitude. I back away unsure of the man and his intent. Why is he here – there has to be a valid reason, it cannot be to rekindle a lifelong fight with his nemesis Popescu? “Did you never wonder about me? What happened after I was gone and why? You must have eh, son?” He takes down his hand knowing I will not touch it. “No hard feelings yeh. What happened was a lifetime ago, I’ve come to terms with the guilt and your ma did alright eh?”

“Why are you here after all this time? Never once have you tried to reach us before.” I growl moving towards the dying man in the bed. He occasionally twitches, he sees me, his eyes dart from side to side as though inner panic at his recognition is suddenly controlling his muscle movement. Popescu’s eyes are sunken, the skin on his face sallow and heavily marked, there is fear written across the portion not covered by the ventilator mask. But I’m careful, mother said he could still be unpredictable and dangerous, yet all I see is a frail old man knocking on God’s door. “Ivan?” I say loudly looking for further recognition. “You know me right. I’m your son.” I touch his arm hoping it breaks the morbid trance he’s slipped into as I chance a brief glimpse at Chambers to admit I know the truth of my parentage.

“Don’t dare touch him,” Scolds Chambers suddenly. ”He’s not what you think. There’s an evil presence in those old bones. Can you not feel it boy?”  He looks at me angrily from his chair. “Beware eh, some wolves can wear sheep’s clothing but still bite hard. He’s not a man to be taken kindly.”

“You need to leave Chambers; I don’t want you here. This is between him and me, you have no part in this so go back to your sordid little life and leave me alone.” I say vindictively squaring up to the man as he rises from his seat to tower above me.

“Share with me boy,” he says stabbing me with his fingers, pushing me easily into a corner. “I know things. I know why you are here and what your little game is.”

I push him back, but it’s like moving a train. “What is it you want, to settle a score? Is that the plan, to cast the killer blow, make the final cut in a feud that’s travelled between you both for decades?”

“No boy,” he admits moving away from me. “Nothing as dramatic as that, just to gloat and make amends, maybe that’s the only truthful answer I can give you. I’m not vindictive to this man at all, but I do wish to make his passage into the next life as easy as can be. Isn’t that what family should do?” He says, raising his eyebrows with a little nod like I ought to fully understand his purpose.

“He needs to die,” I say.

“I know.” Comes the reply without any protective reaction.

“Right now,” I yell tugging the mask from the dying man’s face. Sudden alarm registers in Popescu’s eyes and a thin arm reaches out and grabs my wrist. He still has strength in those fingers and grunts a word that is unintelligible but hastened by ferocity and I step back in surprise at the anger rising in his frail body. Chambers stands at my side and I turn to face him breathing hard. “I need your help,” I ask hoping the paternal instinct has not departed him decades back.

“I know,” he says without emotion taking hold of Popescu’s arm. “Your mother told me everything. No need to fear boy I’ll play my part and more. I’m here to help not hinder . . . your mother asked me.”

“What did you say?” I question shocked at the calm comment unaware the Baron’s other hand has pushed the mask firmly back into place. We both look, his eyes are glaring hatred, staring wide conjuring something evil to throw at us.

“Dreams,” Jack says. “She comes – in the night as a friend, we talk. You need me here son right now and she knew that. Even in death she knew this day would be inevitable and I always said I would be ready. There are things she hasn’t told you, but your pain is my pain too. I don’t have long left in this world son. Lung cancer. It’s killing me as it kills Ivan.” He states forcing the ventilator free of the Baron’s face and throws it wildly across the room. Suddenly I sense being pulled backwards away from the bed of Ivan Popescu. An invisible hand yanking at my coat collar with great strength, a rough arm circling my neck, dragging, clutching tighter stopping my breath. I shift my legs, balance the pressure and ignore the sensation. It is not real, just the frail old man’s manifestation of presence distilled into a force to confuse the mind, but it’s working as I relinquish my grip on the man in the bed who stares at me wildly.

Jack Chambers the ally, the man at my side forever mysterious and calm, just an image of a hazy memory I don’t recall is fighting hard for me right now, obeying the will and command of my mother dead these past twelve years. I don’t understand why as we have no real connection. He is not my father but fully accepted that role when I was a child and yet I’m please, without him there would clearly be no chance of victory as Popescu’s demon prepares to inhabit my body and soul at his death. We cannot stop that certainty, it is as inevitable as the sun giving light to the dawn but I must be prepared to accept and face that predator when that bell is tolled. Somehow, it has to be returned to die imprisoned within the body of Popescu, then sunk back into the ground he and mother raised it from and I will be free to return to life’s normal path – but how? I have no plan and know nothing of medical intervention. Is mother there watching as I think and slide into the centre of the room pulled by an unknown presence. I don’t know, I’m beginning to unravel from uncertainty and disorientation – the Baron is gaining ground and I am getting weaker as he moves me around the room by the mystical supremacy of his mind. I feel powerless to act, I think I am finally done. Jack grabs a loose blanket and forces it over the face of Popescu and I come to understand the prospect of his hastened death as either revenge or a final desire to help in the downfall of this evil being. Seconds pass as I watch unable to help, the sick man flails around on the bed like a bull facing a stun gun, yet Jack stands firm his strength conquering and I feel the power of evil passing into me. It’s like a drug heightening all the senses and filling my low esteem with consummate confidence. Do I want this to go away? I told mother maybe this was really what I was born for. Everlasting life, a circle that ebbs and flows with every blood kin it infiltrates. I like it, it like me. It fills me with joy and the stimulation of enjoyment without remorse for whom I may consume or abuse in daily pursuit of a fulfilling debauched life. I want it, I need it – I want to be the Baron – it’s tearing me apart.

“Do it, kill the old bastard, he’s nothing to me. Finish him Chambers, you’re here to help so get the job done and we can leave this mausoleum of a place.” I cry as the devotion of my new soul takes over all the senses and I push down on the blanket stretched across the old man’s face as Jack’s arms struggles to hold the thing in place. Ivan Popescu’s body suddenly falls limp, the struggle is over, we have beaten the devil from him. “Take no chances with him. Make sure he’s dead before you remove that blanket Chambers. I don’t want any fuck ups this time.” I breath into the man’s ear beside me as the monitors fall silent and I feel that evil complete its control of me like a blast of forced energy, wilful and desiring, changing my innocent thoughts to something I would never have considered before. It has me under its spell, but I fight it, I know it’s wrong, what little  control remains within me ebbs from fulfilment to rejection of this abomination.

Chamber’s looks at me horrified as he raises the blanket from the dead man’s face, a grotesque mask of struggle and defeat. “You can’t let it win,” he says grabbing me by the shoulders trying to make me see sense. “Fight it boy, fight it. Give it back.” He shouts.

I look at him like a child frightened by night terrors.  “Help me father?” I plead feeling dead to a world that is slowly caving in around me. “Let it die with me, put it back in the ground with my bones. There’s no other way.” The demand is the final honest call my old self makes as I drift into a deep dark hole I know I will never return from. Chambers lets me slip to the floor, I am finished, all the strength I have has gone and left me weak and susceptible. He rips something off the wall, a machine, it crashes to the floor, surely someone must hear the commotion. The door has been locked, yet I sense knocking and yelling from the other side. No-one gets in. I see a cable in his hands, ripped from the shattered machine. Electricity, 240 volts enough to kill a man courses through those copper wires. “Do it?” I challenge. “It’s the only way.” And then another violent voice erupts from my throat. “Kill him and I will hunt you down from both sides of the grave. He’s mine now.” It says with acid determination.

“Not today son. You die.” He rams the cable into my chest and I explode with heat and pain and shaking so intense I feel lifted from the floor with the agony of the current destroying me organ by organ. “Pass it over son,” say Chambers. “Pass it across,” Then I see my mother in the darkness of my mind in her glorious beauty, like I remember her as a child. Long hair and porcelain skin, dressed in gypsy clothes ready to deal the cards in a circus side show.

“All of us back together again,” she says with wry smile. “It was always meant to happen you know,” she adds. “Fate is a wonderful consideration, but you must fight this thing. Kick it out, hand it back before it captures your soul. Be free to live a full normal life to the end where we will meet again I’m sure. Your time is not now, today is not your day son.”

There is no voice I can use as I tremble on the floor in death throws while Chambers keeps the cable tight against my chest, but words come, as thoughts and they hear, they both hear. “How mother,” I scream in my head. “Popescu is dead, there is no other to pass this demon to.”

“Your father Jack Chambers will take it from you.” Mother says calmly.

“But how . . . he’s no blood relative?”

“I am Ivan’s brother. That’s the secret you never knew. I will take it. Give it to me and spare yourself son.” He says as I look on shocked at the revelation.

“NO,” screams the other person inside me. “You cannot pass me to a dying old man. I need youth to play my part – I am the Baron you shall not take me.”

“Please boy, touch your father make it happen.” Pleads my mother. And I do, the spirit leaps across and the fires of electricity burn into the body and soul of Jack “Bulldog” Chambers and my world turns black and in the distance a speck of light is calling me. Louder and louder and the speck gets brighter and bigger the nearer I get. It’s a whole new world of light and warmth and comfort and there she is waving me in, drawing me ever closer with each passing second. The world abruptly stalls around me. I get no closer and the speck of light starts to diminish, it fades to a pin prick in the far distance, then there are voices, anxious and determined.

“Clear,” one shouts. I jerk with a spasm that flashes open my eyes with the shock and daylight cascades in. A huge intake of breath and white coats surround me, agitated, breathing heavily, hoping. “We have him,” calls the same face. He raises my arm, checks the pulse with his fingers at my wrist. “He’s okay, he’s back with us,” he says. The pain boils inside me, the aftermath of the electricity surge burning in my organs is intense. I try to move closer to Jack to speak words of gratitude for a secret never told and selfless devotion to a cause he had no notion to endeavour. He has it now, this thing, this unspeakable abomination that has no name, just hatred and power to inflict destruction on the naive innocents of this world. What now I wonder as I struggle to raise myself from the floor of the room as my eyes clear and I focus on detail. The smashed door, several medical staff one holding the paddles of the defib machine. Popescu’s body hangs languid from one side of his bed, his dead eyes continue to look at us with despair and Jack Chambers still holds the electricity cable like it was a trophy and I see the doubt in his eyes. There is no voice in my throat to speak, no words escape. the cords are fried. I watch mother by Jack’s side, arms wrapped around him in comfort and love whispering in his ear. He looks at her and smiles, some words pass that I cannot hear and reaches across caressing her hand with his own then jams the cable hard against his chest where his heart and cancer filled lungs sit. She holds him tight, both arms keeping the cable in place as he writhes and screams in agony, the electricity carrying out the task the disease would have taken several more weeks to complete. Jack slumps to the floor, the cable swirls free sparking as it touches the metal bed holding the corpse of his brother. He briefly dances under the sheets as a swift jolt of electricity runs through the bed, the medical staff stay clear determined not to be its next victim. In the pandemonium I have a moment free from attention and access the situation. I am alive. Chambers and Popescu are both lying dead in the room, the staff are struggling to understand the chaos. The beast harboured in me since birth passed into Jack Chambers where it now lies dead as its current host. Is that it, the situation normalised and fully under control once more, or have I missed a vital part? Who knows, I feel normal once again, momentarily settled, but the future is more than uncertain, like a door briefly open where I cannot peer into a room. Two nurses help me to my feet and ask if I’m okay. There is a dizziness in my head and pain pounding through my muscles, but I seem okay I tell them as another nurse secures the electricity cable removing its feed from source. We are safe in that room of mystery and death, but there is explaining to be done. I tell them I have no memory, just a void where there should be detail of the events. It’s a lie, I know, but what else can I divulge, they’d think me mad, or worse a murderer of two men and then prison or the psychiatric ward for the rest of my days if I tried to explain the truth – best left unsaid? The police believe it to be a revenge killing of Chambers against his brother, overdue from some decades old feud and bitterness. How I was electrocuted remains a mystery and reported as a bizarre unexplained accident. If only they knew the truth that in a world overflowing of evil and violence, there are even darker forces under the surface stirring dread and fear into innocent minds that fuel the need for lust and power and preservation of time old vices – vengeance, payback and murder – did Cain not kill his brother Abel? The first reported murder, a parallel I have just witnessed, Shocking, we all agree, but it will never end.

In the darkness of night there is always a speck of light calling us, some to witness the afterlife at the end of the road and those with innocent ambitions wishing to play a different character dream they shall be host to some unnameable carnal evil that pervades us all at times as it continuously walks the earth preying on unsuspecting innocents. I know and I walk in fear that that thing still follows me waiting, ready to pounce when I am at my lowest with all my barriers down. I just hope mother is still there to give comfort and protection if I should ever need it again. Time will tell but that’s the finale of this tale.