The Sight of Evil

Grant had seen the sky once. It was a hot summer day, and as is common for a Georgia summer, a few dark clouds were beginning to come together on the horizon. The blackened grey of the storm to come was in sharp contrast with the rest of the clear blue sky. For some unknown reason, even after all of Grant’s other memories of sight faded to nothingness, the image of that sky still remained. It was near the end of that long summer that the accident occurred.

Although the memories of that fateful day were as muddled and hazy to Grant as most from his young years, he had heard and was forced to retell the story so many times that to say he knew it by heart would be an understatement at the least. On that day, like so many others before it, Grant was gently shaken awake by his father, just as the light of dawn began to creep into his small bedroom. As his father waited at the kitchen table, sipping his usual cup of strong, black coffee, Grant dragged himself out of bed, brushed his teeth and donned the brand new set of camouflage clothing which he had received for his 8th birthday, less than a week before. A half an hour later, Grant and his father parked the dusty family pickup on the edge of the forest and with Grant running excitedly ahead, the two of them entered the shadowy woods.

The sound of the large-gage shotgun going off echoed through the forest. Grant’s father immediately broke into a run, yelling his son’s name as he frantically scoured the trees. Finally after what seemed like ages, but in reality was closer to five minutes, he came upon his son’s seemingly-lifeless body, lying in a pile of leaves on the forest floor, an older man in a hunting cap crouched over him, sobbing ceaselessly. Thankfully, the hunter who caused the accident had immediately called emergency services, who managed to save Grant’s life. Unfortunately, there was no way to salvage his sight and the facial scars he received would remain forever.

Now, at the age of thirty, Grant had become so used to his blindness that he felt like he’d been this way his entire life. Despite his disability he had managed to graduate summa cum laude from Harvard law school and then quickly acquire a much sought after position clerking for Judge McArthur, one of the most well respected judges in L.A. County. Grant was engaged to a gorgeous, wonderful, woman, his career was on the fast track and overall he considered his life to be perfect. That is, at least, until the visions started…

They came to him one night in the form of a dream. Normally Grant’s dreams were hazy, a strange jumble of images, animals, plants, landscapes, none of which were accurate in a realistic sense. He would find himself surrounded by winged elephants, spotted tigers and humongous mice, but this dream was different. It began with blood, flowing rivers of dark red cascading down in front of his mind’s eye. From an objective point of view, the torrential rivulets of liquid could have been anything, paint, or even food coloring, but the moment the dream began Grant knew that it was blood. Moving his hands in a motion reminiscent of swimming he parted the curtain of gore in front of him, slowly revealing its source, a massive sculpture of body parts, haphazardly thrown together to form a giant, many headed, many limbed beast. On further inspection the sculpture turned out to made entirely of the dismembered bodies of Grant’s father, mother and fiancée. At this, Grant awoke screaming and covered in cold sweat.

All through the following morning, Grant could not seem to shake the memory of the dream. The overwhelming intensity of it even prompted him to consider spending the day at home but before he could make a decision, Grant heard the a key turning and the front door begin to swing open. With a tired sigh, Grant stood up and walked the eighteen familiar steps to the door. Immediately, he smelled the rose and vanilla scent of his fiancées favorite perfume. “Hi Karen” he said quietly, standing aside, allowing her to enter the house. Grant felt her soft hand on his forehead, “Are you ok baby? You look so pale...” she inquired worriedly, “I’m fine, just didn’t sleep well last night is all.” He responded, trying to sound better than he felt. Karen guided him over to the couch and took a seat, “Are you sure you’re up for today? We have quite a few errands to run… The cake tasting, auditioning the band, and we still have to finish the seating arrangements…” “I’m fine honey. I know how important all of this is to you… let’s get going!” Grant replied quickly, almost leaping to his feet. “Alright honey, if you’re sure…” Karen said with just a hint of apprehension as they walked out of the house to her car.

Grant was beginning to feel better and felt the lingering dread caused by the dream start to fade as they pulled into the first stop along their long run of errands, the local gourmet cake shop. As he entered the shop with Karen on his arm, Grant took a long deep breath, taking in the smell of fresh baked goods, frosting and somewhere in the background the strange, faint, barely noticeable hint of copper. “What can I help you with today?” came the voice of a young, effeminate sounding man. “We are looking for a cake for our wedding” Karen replied, the smile unmistakable in her voice. “Wonderful! Congratulations! Let me get you our wedding binder!” the employee said as Grant heard him quickly walk away. After a minute or two the young man returned and handed a large three ringed binder to Karen, “Just holler if you have any questions!” said the employee as he retreated behind the counter. Grant heard the pages turning quickly as Karen browsed the book, every few seconds saying “What about strawberry?”, “Traditional white?” and other cake related comments. Grant mumbled a “yes” or a “no” every so often but soon found his attention drifting. The before barely noticeable smell of copper was becoming more and more present, and stranger even than that, something disturbing was happening behind Grant’s eyes.

Everything had been black for Grant since the accident, pitch black, blacker than even the idea of darkness, but now somehow, unbelievably it seemed that Grant’s vision (or lack of therefore) was becoming an even darker form of nothingness. A wave of nausea overwhelmed Grant, as the terrifying feeling of darkness enwrapping his entire being began to eat its way into his very soul. Grant heard Karen begin to say “Honey, what’s wrong?” before her voice began to fade away entirely, as if moving off through a large tunnel. For a moment there was total and complete silence and then starting low and full of bass and growing louder and louder Grant heard a massive roaring sound, almost a mix between the rushing of a gigantic river and the voice of the loudest lion in existence. The roar inside his head continued to increase, until finally it was too much for his mind to process and Grant blacked out.

For someone who always wakes up to darkness, the feeling of finding himself in an unknown place when he regained consciousness was that much more terrifying for Grant. As he attempted to get out of the small, cot like bed he found himself in, Grant felt the cold steel tug of handcuffs on both his wrists pulling him back to the bed. “Karen! Karen?!” he pleaded, unable to keep the sound of terror from infiltrating the tone of his voice. A few seconds passed until Grant smelled Karen’s distinctive perfume and heard her footsteps as she approached the bed; “You’re awake… How are you feeling?” she asked, trying and ultimately failing to keep her voice light. “I feel fine, what happened? Why am I handcuffed to the bed? Where am I?” Grant asked in quick succession. “You’re in the hospital… You don’t remember anything?” Karen replied, placing a comforting hand on his forehead. “I was in the cake shop with you, you were looking through the binder and then that horrible noise started and then… Nothing…” Grant said, his voice shaking uncontrollably. Before Karen could respond Grant turned his face into her hand and steadying his voice as much as he could, asked again “Karen… Why am in handcuffs?”

A little over twenty four hours later Karen was pushing Grant out of the hospital in a wheelchair, they were headed home. She kept telling him that he was lucky not to be in jail, a one day psychiatric hold was a god send compared to what could have happened, but out of all the things Grant was feeling at the moment, lucky was definitely not one of them. In fact, if Grant had to pick one pervading emotion for himself it would be guilt. He felt so terrible for what he’d done to that poor young man at the cake shop. He was still in disbelief, the idea that all of this had to be some sort of huge mistake kept passing through his mind, but Karen had seen it all. She had seen Grant suddenly attack the man, punching, kicking and even biting him. The doctors and police had told them that the young man had been lucky to have only suffered a broken nose and a variety of bruises and abrasions before the other customers had jumped in and restrained Grant, holding him down on the floor until the police arrived. After the twenty four hour evaluation period, the doctors had explained to Grant that they’re best guess was that the incident was caused by some kind of underlying post-traumatic stress disorder that had gone undiagnosed for nearly his entire life, probably since the accident in his childhood. Although this seemed like a convenient conclusion, Grant was still left with many unanswered questions. What had triggered the attack? Why had this never happened before? And most importantly: Would it happen again? The doctors seemed confident that the high milligram doses of Xanax and sleeping pills would prevent another incident, at least until Grant could begin formal therapy, but he himself was not so sure. It had taken an immense amount of convincing on Karen’s part for him to leave the hospital, but as was always the case, he could never say no to her for long.

As they pulled into the driveway of their house, Karen saw that Grant's parent’s range rover was already sitting in front of the garage. As soon as Karen had let them know what had happened, Grant’s father and mother had insisted on coming to stay with them immediately. As Karen guided Grant through their front door and into the house a wonderful, calm feeling began to wash over him. Whether from the Xanax or just the presence of his family, he could not tell. After a light meal prepared by Grant’s mother, he decided that it was about time to go to sleep; it had been a very long couple of days after all. Taking two of his prescribed sleeping pills, Grant happily climbed into his and Karen’s large California king bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Grant awoke suddenly in the middle of the night; at least he thought he was awake. Then he opened his eyes and was stunned to find that he was able to see. He saw the clock on the bedside table steadily blinking 3:33am, he saw the blankets on the bed, realizing for the first time that they were blue; he saw the huge, whitish, yellow, nearly full moon outside of the bedroom window. I must be dreaming again… Grant thought with disbelief, but this did not feel like a dream. Quickly, he pinched himself, almost yelping out in fear and surprise. Slowly he rose out of bed, looking all around him, drinking in everything in sight, the wallpaper, the carpet, the art that Karen had collected and slowly, tentatively Grant’s surprise began to morph into the most extreme elation he had ever felt in his entire life. Turning back towards the bed he noticed that Karen was not laying on her side, he had to tell her what had happened! It was a miracle! “Karen! Karen! Mom! Dad!” he yelled, waiting for an answer but receiving none. The house was strangely silent. Confused, Grant walked slowly toward the bedroom door, opening it and walking into the outside hallway. Then he noticed the smell. It hit him like a wave, the unmistakable, astoundingly strong odor of copper, bringing with it a feeling of malevolent dread. Walking farther down the hallway, Grant stopped at the balcony overlooking the spacious living room, leaning over the railing in the semi-darkness; Grant strained his newfound vision to look down into the center of the room. Then without warning, a cloud moved from in front of the moon, allowing its light to penetrate the wall to wall windows downstairs and illuminating a ghastly scene. Gaping in horror Grant looked down to see the terrifying image from his dream, the horrible macabre form of his parents and Karen’s mangled bodies, sculpted together to form the massive beast of corpses, blood filling the living room, seemingly inches deep. Frozen, unable to look away, Grant began to scream.

When the police entered the house the next day (complaints due to the smell had been quite forthcoming), they found the terrifying scene arranged just as it had been the previous night, except for Grant’s body. It was lying in the far corner of the room; one of his eyes completely torn apart and still oozing blood. From the other jutted a long, sharp, fire poker. The captain of police gave a terse, short statement at the required press conference; explaining the facts of the seemingly open and shut case of a man brutally murdering his entire family in cold blood. The first question came from a young reporter in the second row “Isn’t it true that this man was blind? How would it be possible for him to commit these murders?” he asked. “Well...” the police captain responded “according to the coroner’s report, it seems that his corneal nerves had somehow regenerated during the previous day…” The reporter raised his hand again with an incredulous look on his face “Are you saying that he suddenly regained his vision and then almost immediately gouged his own eyes out?” asked the young man. With a sigh the police captain stepped down from the podium before responding “I suppose that there was something he just did not want to see…”