Seeing Is Believing, Isn’t It?

 

Stuart Holland

 

They’re watching you… they come out at night to check on us and they return to their hiding places before dawn.  They crawl along the ground, climb walls and peer through windows on the lookout for their prey. Silently, stealthily, the red, bloodshot eyes pick their targets and apply the invisible markers of our destiny. Then, their mischief complete, they leave as silently as they came.

John Edwards was one of those targeted by the red eyes. He didn’t realise it, of course, people rarely do, at least until it is too late. This particular night it was hot and humid and John left the bedroom window open his bedroom open. He fell into a disturbed sleep and never saw the eyes that climbed the wall to his bedroom. He was blissfully unaware of the red eyes that climbed through the open window and sprayed indelible drops of liquid on his forehead. Moments later the eyes were gone.

When John awoke in the morning he felt like he had the beginnings of a cold.  The usual symptoms included a headache that seemed to get worse as he showered and shaved. Breakfast eaten, John made to leave for work. The painkillers (no brand adverts here) had failed to shift the feeling in his head. The front door closed behind him and the key was turned in the lock, though he was barely aware of his actions.  It was purely his habits that were guiding him this morning. John took the half dozen paces to the sidewalk at the end of the front garden. He turned left as usual to walk to the bus stop and that was the moment when he finally realised something wasn’t right. Suddenly he felt weak, his whole body collapsing under him. He was barely conscious when he sank to the ground, banging his head on the cold concrete. He tried futilely to sit up but John realised he couldn’t see properly, nor could he move his arms which were like dead weights hanging to either side of his shoulders. 

“Help!” He called out though no-one was near enough to hear his final, anguished cry.

And then he keeled over and collapsed in death. He never saw the eyes that were watching his final moments, peering out from the hedgerow across the road. Silently the eyes departed, knowing the next night they would select their next target.

 

 

The Watcher In The Well

 

Liam Spinage

 

For as long as I had been visiting my grandmother's rural retreat, there remained a singular object of fascination to me. It was an old stone well in the grounds at the rear of the property, overgrown with weeds. When I was younger, after  scrabbling through the undergrowth to find it was the highlight of our summer visits. I would remain there all morning sometimes, my bare legs criss-crossed with tiny cuts from my adventures, much to the consternation of my doting mother who would undoubtedly sigh, shake her head and then apply just enough antiseptic to make me want to scream. I never did, though.

I had often imagined I could see eyes there in the depths, glistening beneath the waters, looking up through the lattice of the rusted iron grate which prevented me from clambering down the shaft. They terrified and fascinated in equal measure. I fashioned many stories to account for their presence. Mother seemed resigned to let these fantasies run their course.

They persevered, though, through angst-ridden adolescence. As an adult, I made tales of terror my stock in trade. The moderate fame granted me suited my quiet lifestyle well. Whilst I never 'made it big', they offered me a creative outlet after long days battling with support calls and the utter mundanity of office life. I was only really content when I closed my own eyes and saw those others staring back at me, unlidded and unblinking. Sometimes there was only a pair of them, staring at me over what I perceived to be a vast gulf of cold damp darkness. At other times, more would open to me. Tens, hundreds even. Watching. Waiting. Hungry.

I went back to that garden many times, not just to visit my grandmother. I even stayed there one summer when she was bedridden after a fall and I was nursing a bad break up and all the dramatic fallout that usually entails. Each time I went to the well and looked down, rapt in the unknowns of its depths. Always those eyes stared back at me, through me, beyond me. I even spoke to them on occasions, whispering lonely thoughts, dark secrets, hopes and dreams. I like to think that somehow they listened, that that's somehow how I got my first big break. A ridiculous notion, surely, but everything I am now I attribute to those slivers of light winking at me from the depths of the well, penetrating the cold iron lattice of the grate and up, up and away to the light of day and the tranquility of that overgrown garden.

Now, with the sad death of my beloved grandmother, the property was mine. I had been signing copies of my latest novel at a book fair when I heard. I had been so caught up in the fame of my new life that I didn't even know she had been struggling with cancer for two years. I tried not to let that detachment get to me, but I carried the guilt through the funeral in late autumn all the way through to signing the deeds in early spring the year after, right up to the moment I drove up to the house in the family Oldsmobile.

I was shocked at how much it had changed over the years. Perhaps my memory was playing tricks on me. I cast my mind back to the distant summer days of my youth, kicking my way fearlessly through the long grasses, turning over rocks to find new bugs to torment Mother with. The sun warmed my back as I watched my younger self on his bold adventure. Simpler, easier times, before the weight of the world and work took their toll.

Once I had taken inventory and had a list of everything I would need to purchase at the local store, I decided to set out on one further adventure of my own, to the furthest recess of the estate where the ancient, crumbling structure of the stone well resided. I had in mind to stare down the well once more, to gaze unafraid into the inky depths and find those eyes looking back at me once more.

Armed only with a rusty pair of secateurs, I cut a swathe through the thicket. It took me over two hours to make good my passage, by which time the sun was already dimming and the pale moon had risen to claim the heavens in its place. Finally I reached it, thirsty and exhausted. I leant on it momentarily to catch my breath and then peered over the edge as I had done in my youth.

Nothing gazed back. There were no eyes in the depths watching me. I made ready to return to the solitude of the house.

It was only later I realised two things which haunt me to this day. First, the grate which once covered the well was no longer there. Second, the grate was never there to prevent me from falling in. It was to prevent the watcher from climbing out.

The night I spent in that forsaken place was my first in many years. It would also be my last. It remains, boarded and bare, a legacy I am too afraid to claim for I had already gazed into that abyss and remain deathly afraid that one day it will find me and gaze back.