Читать книгу The Curse - Vasilios Bouzas - Страница 6

Suburban House, Washington, USA, 1995

Whimpering like a wounded puppy, the faithful German Shepherd dog refuses to move away from his master, instead remaining for hours, staring up at the dead man dangling like a rag doll from the roof beam, who has a thick rope knotted around his neck and dribbles of spit dropping to the floor every few seconds from his sagging grey mouth.

A chair lay on its side next to a small coffee table. On the table is a framed picture of the man with his wife, young daughter and lying next to the picture is a small brown teddy bear.

The dog’s whimpering starts to become labored, as if he is having trouble breathing, the room has turned cold and steam curls from the nostrils of the hound.

Around the room the walls are adorned with the word REVENGE painted roughly in dark blood-red paint.

Something alerts the dog and he lifts his head, staring at his master, as if he has moved, and though the man is still hanging from the beam, something does appear to be coming from the body. An eerie glow surrounds the body and the dog scatters to the corner of the room in fear, his whimper loud and low from his shaking body.

The glow takes the shape of a human figure as it emerges from the man’s body.

It hovers, as if looking or waiting for someone. As it hovers another lighter apparition appears, an angelic figure descends, but its glow is a soft white and it appears to have an angelic child-like face. The angel offers its hand to the man’s ghostly figure, but there is no movement. The angel offers its hand again, but still the ghostly apparition declines to take it and instead floats away from the angel.

The angel pulls back, its head shaking, its hands are quickly drawn to its face which is now melting away to be replaced by a hollow black hole.

The ghostly figure of the man looks down as the floor of the room melts away and an eerie red glow fills the room. The dog gets up, no longer afraid, it growls and barks at the disappearing angel, its eyes blood-red and legs stiffened into a statue-like position, ready to pounce, its teeth bared white. The floor itself has started to take on a red glow, flames lick around the edges and the centre seems to blacken as a scarlet flame leaps high blasting the ceiling away from the house in a deafening roar.

Slowly rising from the fiery depths of the earth as if from hell comes a demon, an anemic, bald-headed figure dressed in a thick black cloak. It has a face of pure evil, pale with dark red penetrating eyes. As it ascends it stretches out long bloodied and scarred arms with gnarled fingers and long finger nails, it is as though you can see the blood pulsing around its body and into its face.

It smiles an evil, horrible smile and raises its hand, offering it to the man’s ghost before turning to scowl at the angel. The man’s ghost raises his hand and offers it to the demon. The demon embraces him and together they descend into the fires of hell.