Eye Of The Hurricane

== Chapter 1: The Umbrella Man ==
When the police found Harvard alone in his house, all the lights had been shut off. The only ones were oil lamps that burned dimly like a scarlet speck in a sea of black. Their flashlights beamed around the room, seeing webs and holes and rats scatter across the floor. In the kitchen they found rotting food that had been left for days, if not weeks. Nothing had been disturbed, except Harvard laying in his living room chair. Mouth agape and skin still lively but dead at the same time. He was washed over in a shade of light Copenhagen blue, his eyes were sunken and dark. His mouth was noticeably missing a tongue, all there was were his ivory teeth. The muscles in his face were nonexistent, just skin drooping over bone. He reeked of cleaning agents and decomposition, with woodsy cologne making a feeble attempt to disguise the stench. When they shone the flashlight at him, they could’ve sworn they saw his eyes move. 
Police tape were wrapped around the small cabin for months before Chief Samantha Winthrop claimed he had passed on from natural causes. He was 52 at the time he passed, so some were doubtful. But, alas, stranger things have happened in Hurricane.
It was around ten P.M. when Anthony had drug me to the old place. The trees reached out towards us as we drove up the crooked road. When the pavement shifted to sand, we knew we’d arrived on the shore of Lake Hurricane, what the town was named after. During the summer days, teenagers would frolic and kick up sand and swim out into the lake. But during the autumn, the excitement turned to fear. No one would go around at night ever since Harvard passed away.
“That lake, Micheal, that lake is haunted!” I remember Vanessa, daughter of Samantha Winthrop, telling me once when we were at a high school Halloween party. We were planning on going there to try and summon Harvard, but Anthony, who was the only one at the time who could drive, hadn’t shown. Apparently, he had walking pneumonia. Nowadays, with my cynical mind, I feel it’s quite disrespectful to try and summon the soul of a man who died in such a manner, but we were stupid kids, so why does it matter?
But anyways, we pulled up to the front door of the cabin and began to look around. Kudzu grew all around the sides and roof of the building. The wood rotted and the whole house had an odor of mildew. There was a shattered window and what looked to be cans of soda littered about. Anthony scoffed as he picked one up, “this is one of those places, Micheal, so you need extra precautions. Junkies are bad news, hooligans are, too. Homeless people are usually chill, but it’s better to be,” he coughed, “it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
His long, blond hair drooped as he looked down to see if the floor had caved in any. He quickly gave me a thumbs up and we entered the dust-caked residence.
Of course Harvard’s body was gone, it was taken to the morgue soon after the Hurricane County Sheriff’s Department found it. But his chair hadn’t been cleaned and still oozed of dark, brown-red blood. Anthony loomed over the old chairs and desks, seeming to study them. “They don’t make these like they used too!” he said, looking to the fridge that was still semi-functioning after around 50 years abandoned. He soon went across from the kitchen into the hallway with the bedroom, bathroom, and what was said to be a storage closet. I stayed in the living room, studying the books on Harvard’s shelf, some encyclopedias and novellas were strewn about, oddly placed and mismanaged. I picked up one without a title and soon realized Harvard had penned it. On the front was only the words “Crusade Project: A Study”.
I stood at the front door, waiting for Anthony when the ground suddenly shook as there was a loud, ear-splitting crunch. I ran over to the bedroom and saw Anthony with his foot against the opened closet door. “Micheal, I got it opened!” I shook my head thinking about how Anthony could’ve just picked the lock, but I knew that just wasn’t his speed.
When we stepped in, we saw that the room had brooms and mops and boxes stacked neatly in the corner. But as we looked around, we saw a mural on the wall depicting a sunny sky with birds flying and clouds rolling. The azure paint peeled, showing the splotchy walls and reeking aroma of mold. Our eyes drew down slowly and we soon fixated on the main item in the room. Untouched by dust or mildew or partying teens or even its sheer age was a bright, crimson crib. Anthony stepped quietly and slowly, like something was telling him not to move too suddenly. I crept up near him before his eyes widened with a fearful gaze. He retched for a second but caught himself before he really vomited. I tensed up as I looked down into the crib, and then I saw it.
Laying there in the crib was a dry, rotting mass that had been very much touched by age. It was small and frail, and seemed to be locked in a state of agony. It was an extremely underdeveloped baby. Just left there to die alone. Anthony went towards the bottom edge and seemed to be fixed on something. “Female,” he said, “you can tell by the hips.”
“Was it alive when Harvard died?”
“Hard to tell, Mike, but judging by her size, she was at least a few weeks premature. Sad that no one claimed her like they did her father.”
“Yeah, it really is.”
When we left the residence, there was a sense of dread hanging over us like a ghost attaching itself to us. There was a tension rising in the air. I could feel it. It was close, too close. I clutched the journal under my arm as we walked back to Anthony’s black Mitsubishi Magna. He looked at me when I opened it up and asked what it was.
“It’s Harvard’s, I think this could be useful if we need any information about-” my mind drew a blank as if I said it without thinking. I gazed down at the page I had opened up too and it said, among pictures of a man and woman, said, “I would’ve named her Charlie, but alas, it wasn’t so.” Anthony had a worried look in his eyes when I read it out loud, and I looked back in equal terror. “Mike, we made a mistake comin’ here…” Anthony’s eyes were a crystal-like blue, like a ring of ice around his pupils. They were small, just a speck. I had never seen him like this, at least not since when I saw him at his dad’s funeral.
At least he willingly went to his funeral, though.
As the two of us drove back to his place, I suddenly heard my phone ringing. I picked it up and on the other end was Vanessa, a close friend of mine who had always told me about the haunted lake. She seemed excited about something on the other end of the phone, but it broke up badly when we pulled beneath the trees. “He said yes!” she screamed, and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Anthony began to snicker. “Matt finally got a girl?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “V.”
“I knew they’d probably be a good couple!” He picked up a bottle of water and chugged it as the two of us drove back to the main suburb. 
Anthony drove, and I noticed a gold ring on his right index finger. It shone in the faint moonlight. He had a necklace around his neck, too, with a pendant depicting a symbol almost resembling a sawed-off tuning fork. “Oh! Hey, Mike, it’s our song!” He turned up the car radio’s volume and sung. “Check it in, check it out, ‘til the sun goes down in the skyyy!” The two of us belted. The guy who ran 99.5 FM started playing that song right at midnight as a way to divide the daytime and nighttime broadcasts. He called it “Like The Wind”.
Anthony began asking me about the book as I read. It had ramblings and drawings and photos taped in with peeling adhesive. He was weirdly unnerved by the book, it seemed, eyes transfixed when I had it open. It was some behavior I’d never seen before from him, he seemed, for the first time in forever… scared.
We pulled up past the stores and schools and buildings, before stopping at a two-story house cast in ivory, frozen in time. My house.
“See you tomorrow!” He yelled as he pulled away towards his house. I stood out in the yard until he disappeared around a corner. I carefully walked up to the door and opened it with my keys. All the lights were off, and the television was on a music channel, playing “Loser” by Beck. Dunno why I always left it on, but I just knew if anyone wanted to steal stuff, they’d think someone was home and leave it alone. Soon after I sat down, it switched to “The Kids Aren’t Alright” by The Offspring.
I flopped over on the couch and read in the book, being presented with mostly unintelligible diary entries and occasional sketches of inhuman creatures. Two stuck out to me in particular, a young girl in an angel costume turning towards the viewer with dead, white eyes. The other was a figure obscured mostly in shadow behind a door frame, but clearly struggling to fit in the door. I could’ve swore I’d seen that thing standing there in my bedroom door one night, but the drawing of the girl just made me feel a choking in my throat. I felt helpless. I looked around the darkened room, waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. It was like when people in horror movies call out “hello?” into an empty room. It just felt right to me at the time, I have no clue why. I immediately closed the journal.
I laid the book down on the couch and got up to get something from the kitchen. I forget what at the time, but I want to say some leftovers from yesterday. I remembered the buzz of the microwave as I waited, anticipating it. But this was soon forgotten when I heard a knock at the door. Initially, I tried to ignore it, being more transfixed on dinner, but soon the knocking grew too loud and I had to go to the living room to check and see who was there. At first I couldn’t see anyone standing there, but soon I saw something bizarre occurring. Raindrops dripped down from the poles at the porch’s and along the walls surrounding the front door. The drops fell and pooled on the porch, but never flowed outside it. I noticed that the rain did not look like just water, but like large droplets of blue acrylic paint. There were flecks of red and yellow, like an artist’s pallet being tainted by other colors over the years.
A ripple in the paint-water began to become noticeable as a figure arose out of it. First emerged an umbrella, dark blue with a silver pole, then emerged a man in a blue suit holding it. He had short, messy black hair cut in a bob at the bottom. I couldn’t see his face, but could see that he wore thick, white glasses when the light reflected them. I went towards the door, but I didn’t open it, yet it opened by itself. The “water” did not flow out, but the man walked with shuffling, purposeful steps that seemed almost like a march at points and like a dance at others. I walked back and he just stood there, umbrella dripping with blue acrylic, which disappeared as it fell. He never spoke.
“What brings you here to Hurricane, sir?” I asked nervously. He never said anything to me, but just gazed at me with eyes unseen. He closed his umbrella and placed it by the door. “sir…” he said in a distant, lost voice. He turned around to look at me and said in that same tone, “it’s near.”
“What’s near, sir?”
“it’s near, sir, it wants you, it needs you…”
“What does, you weirdo!” I was trying to get answers out of him, but he offered no reply. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “you’ll know when he arrives. I’m merely the sender, not the holder of information.”
“Well, who sent you?!”
The man offered no reply yet again, but slowly, I could see his face appear from its shadows. Stretched, gaping skin, with glistening white teeth and the glasses filthy. Washed over in that Copenhagen haze. He never said anything, but handed me a small envelope addressed to “the boy at the Afton residence.” Soon he picked up his umbrella and disappeared out the door, acrylic rain splashing up and disappearing into the night with him.
I was alone yet again, now with a letter from someone who I don’t know, but clearly knows me. It wasn’t anyone I knew because they would’ve addressed me as “Mike” or “Micheal”, knowing I was disconnected from my family. But this was a letter to the house, in a way, because I was the only one remaining. I was the only one who could read it. 
The following was what was contained in that letter.
“Salutations, M. A.,
You’ve found something of mine (or his, perhaps) that you’ve taken interest in, for sure. You’ve also attracted my presence, so please do not be alarmed if you begin to see or hear things that appear dreamlike to the rational mind. Do not be like the last one who threw a chair at me while telling me to leave (I caught it midair and you should’ve seen the look on his face, MDR). I won’t be too much of a bother to you, just a peaceful watcher and/or “roommate” as some may describe it.
Sincerely yours, an old friend
P.S. Are you still frightened of the dark?”
The cryptic note confused me when I read it. The pen strokes were loose and flowing, bordering on fluent cursive. It was handwritten, not typed, which confused me even more. The only time I get messages from people I know is through emails. The line at the end felt like it knew something no one else did. I remember for the longest time I had frequent night terrors when I was younger, about 10 or 11. I remember Norman (or Chris as Mom always called him) had the same thing, but worse. At around 2 AM, you’d always wake up to the sound of him screaming and crying. One time, he seemed to have been having a conversation with someone, saying through tears, “I don’t want to die!”
That was two days before his birthday, when the… bite occurred. This “peaceful watcher” could be… no, that’s stupid, it’s probably one of V’s annoying friends who she gossips with all the time. But it was too calculated, too perfect. It didn’t seem like the work of a 20-something woman, it seemed like the work of something that had been with me all these years. Something always watching, always listening. I shuddered before eating dinner and immediately going to bed afterwards. I didn’t feel like sleeping, but figured a rest wouldn’t hurt. I lied there for what felt like an eternity, tossing and turning, hot and cold. Freezing, sweating, freezing, sweating, all in a loop. But all of a sudden, I could feel my eyelids grow heavy over the course of a few minutes. My head pounded like a bass drum. Soon, I fell asleep.
I was driving with Anthony, with Like The Wind blaring from the car’s speakers. We drove through a seemingly endless forest with trees that reached like desperate hands, begging for the light above. The road was bumpy and neglected, and graffiti could be seen on the buildings that were few and far between. Anthony was conversing with me about something I now forget, but I do remember him saying that he “wondered if the road had an end.”
Soon, his highbeams were bright and shone like stars against the desolate road. The trees flickered with small chunks of lights and the graffiti could be read more clearly. It had the line “do not enter” written over and over again. This was something Anthony ignored. He just kept driving. I paid more attention to him, though. He seemed evasive, never looking at me, so I bent forward to try and see his face. There was none. Just a gaping, bleeding hole where his face should’ve been. Red flesh pulsated and seemed to twitch, like a muscle spasm. There was only the lower set of teeth, nothing else. As I looked over to the road, I saw the Umbrella Man again. He stood, partially submerged in shadow, before approaching me. It began to rain as he inched forward in those shuffling steps. As he neared the Magna, my vision blurred and shifted, warping the colors into a washed-up, aged appearance. Briefly, I saw a tall (note to self: it was around 8-9 feet), gaunt figure with fingers that moved like they were independent from the rest of the body. It placed its hand against the passenger side door and as its fingers descended down the window, it left a dark, oily film, like some sort of tar.
My vision unblurred and the Umbrella Man was gone. But so was Anthony. I was alone in the Magna with only Like The Wind to comfort me. “Check it in… check it out… til’ the sun goes down in the…” I sung in a hushed voice before I gazed up. It was the lanky, horrific being that stood there, staring at me with black eyes and tiny pinpricks of eyes for pupils. Tears streamed down its face, that same shade of black. Its teeth were long and sharp like that of a deep sea fish. Its face resembled a human, but only in physical similarity. There was no soul to be seen. There was a choking sensation in my throat. Like I wanted to cry when I saw it. It was visceral, almost like it wasn’t my mind frightened by it, but my spirit. It was the antithesis of my being, a primordial manifestation of pain.
When it spoke, I felt sick. “Micheal, oh Micheal, dear, it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you,” It was sweet, but sweet in the way of decomposition. Like a corpse had been presented before me, with soulless, unblinking eyes and teeth that could easily slice someone’s hand off. I didn’t say anything to it, I just squirmed back, trying to get to the Magna’s back seat somehow. It spoke of me and Norman, that brother my mother insisted on being called Chris. It told me how one day, it just “stole him away from the family” to be its own, I assumed. Finally, I managed to twist my torso around just right and fall into the back passenger seat. I hyperventilated, sobbing after being paralyzed with fear. The monstrosity slipped in somehow and sat right in front of me. The air was cold, my face felt numb and I couldn’t move yet again. Suddenly, the… thing placed its hand on my cheek, sticking almost instantly. The black slime poured down onto the carseat and clung to me like a spiderweb. I tried to peel it off but it disappeared as soon as I did so. I wanted to wake up, I knew this had to be a dream somehow. None of this was real. The Umbrella Man never came. “I’m not scared of you!” I yelled, trying to fight back. But it wasn’t of any use.
The being just sat there, watching me struggle, almost enjoying it, sicko. I managed to open the car’s door and escape into the desolate, dark woods, but it followed me. I could feel it moving right behind me, but when I looked back, there was nothing. I look back forward, still nothing. Yet I could feel it around me, an aura rather than a physical creature. It was quiet, all was still. I could hear my heart thumping, it was an instinct to flee, but I was still. I couldn’t move. I tried to break free, but I couldn’t. I was stuck. I was paralyzed like a pillar of salt.
When I woke up at roughly 4 AM, I swear I could hear rain pouring against the roof. I looked outside my window, and it was dry, normal. I was initially confused about it, until I heard the heavy steps of someone walking around. The steps grew violent, as if whoever it was was trying to break through the roof. “Not again…” I muttered when I realized the Umbrella Man was probably back. Now I couldn’t sleep, but I’d much rather been awake than trapped in that horrific dream. The stomping got worse as it approached my end of the house. I kept a low profile, crouching down and trying to avoid any sort of noise. I was like a worm with a bird standing above me, tapping the ground to see if I emerge. Or a fox in a burrow while a hunter’s dog scouts me out. An animal, trapped in a cage, being taunted by an uncaring bystander. I sat curled-up on the floor until the footsteps went away. Then, as soon as I got up, my bedroom door opened.
No one was there, not the Umbrella Man, not Anthony, not that being, and not V. No one was there to watch me suffer. No one was there to feel pity. No one was around to help. I was trapped here, alone.