By

Sheila Roy

            Do you believe in dark angels?

            We’re told that they exist, have existed since before the beginning of time. We’ve read accounts of their fallen ways in books ages-old and cherished by millions. Modern day literature romanticizes their existence and fictionalizes their appearances. We’ve seen them portrayed in movies and television programs. They live on through the whisper of legend, the telling of fables, and the reading of bedtime stories.

            So maybe you do believe in dark angels, but have you ever seen one?

            Perhaps you’ve suspected some young individual was possessed by a dark angel, based purely on his or her behavior? When you watched a documentary on serial killers, were you convinced that you were actually witnessing interviews with dark angels in disguise? Isn’t the nightly news filled with incidents which surely must have involved a dark angel’s influence?

            After all, what kind of mother drowns her children? What sort of teenager shoots someone over a pair of sneakers? How do some individuals become so desperate that they are willing to extinguish a human life just to gain possession of twelve dollars kept in a store register?

            Though incredible and horrible, none of the previously mentioned tragedies count toward actually seeing a dark angel. You will doubt the story I’m about to tell you. After reading my account, you may even call me a liar.

            My skin is thick enough to take your criticism, but what I can’t take is the silence. I can’t hold this story back for another minute! It’s the acid bubbling in my stomach, eating at the inner walls of my belly. It’s the monstrous elephant in the room turned carnivore, threatening to devour me. It stalks me. It mocks me. It haunts me.

            Perhaps it will haunt you too….

***

            Sunlight was streaming through every window in my ranch-style house, but there were still several corners cast in shadow. The first floor, a finished basement, wasn’t designed to take advantage of natural light. Since the house was built into a hill, the cozy den with woodstove and the white-splashed laundry room depended solely on recessed lighting to drive the dark away. Only the two front bedrooms had windows.

            My husband Chad and I had converted one of those bedrooms into a relaxing spa, complete with a six-person hot tub. There was nothing more soothing than sitting in hot, simmering water while watching white flakes fall just outside the ten-foot bow window. The mood was further set by the two candles, which dangled from the ceiling in the center of golden rings. The trim was hand-stenciled with green-leaved burgundy flowers, which matched the burgundy colored walls.

            The room was decorated to contrast the peaceful feeling the hot tub created. Weapons of war – such as unique swords and axes – hung on the wall in neat rows, and dragons feuded with tigers in several murals. Two small curio cabinets displayed intricately designed daggers, throwing stars, and other lethal devices. It was where opposites collide; peace meets war.

The upstairs is where we did most of our living, though. The tiny but efficient kitchen had a French door which led to the deck and outdoors. Off the kitchen was the living room, which had a cutout in the wall overlooking the stairs. At the top of the stairs was the hallway. The only bathroom in the house was directly across the stairs. At the end of the hallway were two bedrooms. The bedroom directly at the end of the hall had been made into an office/library, and we always kept the door shut when it wasn’t in use.

The bedroom on the right was the master bedroom, a source of much of my anxiety. I’d been uneasy in that room since we first moved into the house over five years ago. There was good reason to be uneasy in that bedroom. A picture I’d taken in the room contained evidence of a haunting. The screw-like vortex captured on film was disturbing, but the activity we witnessed daily was even more troubling. Chad and I had seen shadows emerging from the room on countless occasions. Sunlight didn’t seem to discourage the activity, either; the activity was just more difficult to see in the light. If only the activity ended there…in that room.

We witnessed activity in our living room all the time, regardless of the time of day. The plant on our television was constantly disturbed by something we couldn’t see. The vibrant leaves would just suddenly sway as though someone hit them or blew on them. Investigations into the phenomenon revealed no spider webs or flying bugs to blame.

We’d both had water drops land on us while sitting on the couch. The white plaster ceiling had no evidence of a leak, and Chad’s search through the attic produced no explanation.

Is it normal to have a garbage bucket that swings open-shut on its own? Maybe a paranormal debunker could explain how the bathroom door closed on its own or a kitchen cupboard door was left open upon occasion. I would love to hear a scientific explanation for the spark of light that shot right at me one day and then disappeared into thin air. And no one could possibly believe that a watery-like substance floated in front of our television on a regular basis.

Besides the many sparks of lights and the misty shapes we’d witnessed, there were also inexplicable sounds coming from empty rooms. Not to mention the occasional mystifying scent of cologne or perfume neither of us were wearing.

Okay, so maybe Chad didn’t see the apparition of a man dressed in black standing next to the refrigerator one night. And, yes, Chad was sitting right beside me on the couch when I saw a little girl dressed in an old fashioned, white dress standing in the hallway. Though he didn’t see her then, he did eventually see her in our bedroom, standing at the end of our bed.

Was it meant to be that the man in black only seemed to show himself to me? He’d woken me from a dead sleep several times, he’d appeared on the stairs once, and I’d even glimpsed him in my shower. I was certain that he had a nasty habit of lurking in the shadows at the end of the hall, against the bedroom door that we always kept shut.

So what…. Right? Lots of places are haunted. The dead are all around us. The real questions are whether or not we can sense them and whether or not they choose to show themselves to us.

I strongly wish this story could end right here. You could move on to a more entertaining tale, and I could spend the rest of my years in perfect ignorance of what the dead are actually capable of.

Do you believe that spiritual activity only transpires in the dark of night? If you believe in ghosts, do you believe they restrain from going in your bedroom or bathroom to watch private moments? If you believe these things, please, cling to your ignorance, my friend. It is that very ignorance that allows you to take your shower in peace and think there is no audience when you and your mate make love. Just remember, curiosity was powerful enough to kill a cat. What makes you think curiosity isn’t powerful enough to attract the dead to your bedside?

Like I said before, sunlight was streaming through every window in the house, but there were several corners still cast in shadow. One of those corners was at the end of the hallway, just before the bedroom door we always keep closed.

Chad had gone to a friend’s house which gave me time to type the poems I’d written recently into my poetry file on my laptop. I was sitting on the couch doing so while my two female mini-Dachshunds played on the floor.

Suddenly, the door at the end of the hallway opened on its own. At first, I didn’t think much of it. I told you things like that happened all the time. I was disconcerted, but panic didn’t set in until I saw a giant head peeping at me from around the door. My fingers froze over the keyboard, and my heart did a somersault in my chest!

I gawked stupidly as the body attached to that giant head stepped out from behind the door. The figure had to duck in order to clear the doorway. Then he was seven feet of bulk, standing in the hallway.

I knew he was a ghost. He had an eerie glow to him, as if he’d stepped out of a black and white photo. His shoulder-length, black hair was disheveled and a shock of it fell over his overly pale, angular face. A menacing expression, emphasized by severe eyebrows, was aimed at me. The width of his shoulders would have filled a football player with shame, and the word expansive was not sufficient enough to describe his chest. I sensed that muscular abs hid beneath the black shirt he wore. It was difficult to be sure since he was also wearing a long, black coat.

I’d barely gotten a glimpse of black pants when a second ghastly figure stepped out of the bedroom behind the first. This one was unable to stand upright in the hallway. He was well over eight feet in height; a virtual giant. His dangerous expression echoed the first figure’s threatening scowl.

All the while, my dogs played with their toys, oblivious to the two terrorizing specters approaching from the hallway. It was then that I noticed the enormous sledgehammers they were wielding. The heads on those sledgehammers were easily two feet in length and a foot in width.

The first apparition to appear finally spoke. His voice was thunderous and it literally shook the whole house. “Dark angels!” it bellowed, as though it was announcing its arrival at a royal ball. The vibration from that earsplitting sound was a colossal hand gripped around my spine, jostling the tender cord in its center with unmeasured contempt.

I rushed into action. I slid across the carpet on my knees to scoop up my dogs, and then I ran for the door in the kitchen. Thank you God for slip-on shoes!

Seconds later, I had the door unlocked and I was running through the threshold. A frantic glance over my shoulder proved that I had made the right choice. The ominous figures were in my living room, staring after me as they swung their sledgehammers through the air.

I was halfway down the driveway when I heard the first crash coming from inside my house. At the end of the driveway, I crouched behind a snow bank on the edge of the road. I hugged my dogs closely and thanked God that they only weighed eleven pounds each. They were staring up at me nervously, most likely wondering if I had lost my mind. Dogs read a person’s energy and base their reactions on what they sense. I could tell that the fear I was projecting was worrying my girls. I shushed them and whispered that everything was going to be okay, although I wasn’t entirely convinced that things would be okay.

My body was still coursing with adrenaline. Otherwise, I would have noticed just how cold it was outside. I peered over the top of the snow bank, but the coast was clear. I could still hear thuds coming from my house though, and dark shadows kept passing by the windows on the second floor. I assumed that the self-proclaimed dark angels were destroying the inside of my home with their steel sledgehammers.

Enough time passed for me to start feeling the cold. The racket coming from my house had stopped, but I was too afraid to go inside by myself. I waited where I was, shivering and holding my dogs tight, for Chad to get home.

Chad’s expression upon arrival gave away how worried and perplexed he was to see me huddled with the dogs at the end of the driveway. He rolled down his window and asked, “What’s the matter, Babe? What happened? Why are you out here with the dogs?”

That’s when the tears came. I couldn’t seem to speak. Instead, I used my chin to point at the house.

“Let me get out of the street. Follow me up the driveway,” he told me in an emotional tone.

I walked up the driveway in a daze, wondering how I was going to explain the destruction that surely awaited us inside the house. He knew about the spiritual activity, but would he believe me when I told him what I’d just been through? I guessed he would when he saw the wreck inside!

As soon as he slammed the truck door, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders sympathetically. “What happened? Put the girls down, and tell me why you’re out here in the cold. Did you see another apparition?”

“I…I saw two this time,” I managed to say while setting our babies on the ground. The girls trotted off along the path, up the hill, towards the house. “No! Get back here!” I called to them in a strangled voice. “Get over here, girls!”

Chad grabbed me by the elbows and turned me to face him. “Why? What happened? Tell me.”

“They came out of the back bedroom,” I cried. I could feel myself shaking, and I was positive it wasn’t just from the cold. I felt traumatized. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

“They were enormous, and they had these huge sledgehammers,” I explained, holding my hands two feet apart to demonstrate the length of the sledgehammers’ heads.

“Sledgehammers?” he asked, bewildered. His brows were scrunched on his forehead from what I assumed was a mixture of anger and disbelief. Hopefully he was mad at the dark angels swinging the sledgehammers, not me.

He loosed my elbows and strode up the path, calling the dogs along the way. He was more determined than I’d ever seen him. I reluctantly followed, praying to God that the dark angels were not waiting just inside the door.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. When I stepped through the threshold, there wasn’t a stick of furniture out of place! Everything was intact and just as organized as ever. I could hear Chad going from room to room downstairs. The dark angels were nowhere to be seen. The door to the bedroom at the end of the hallway was closed as usual.

Chad came up the stairs and showed me palms-up. “Nothing,” he told me. He moved over to me and encircled me in his arms. “It’s okay. It’s over now,” he said, hugging me against him.

“You don’t believe me,” I mumbled hoarsely, trying to hold back more tears.

“Yes, I do,” he assured me. “You wouldn’t lie about this. I know that. Whoever they were…they’re gone now.”

But my biggest fear was that they would come back. Maybe I wouldn’t be so lucky the next time….

***

            Do you know how long a week can be when you’re waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop?

            It happened exactly a week later. Chad was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Since we work nights, dinner is at nine in the morning. Sometimes it feels odd to be eating a cheeseburger or a plate of chicken fettuccini with broccoli at that hour. Anyone who works nights will know what I mean.

            I was working on a short story. My laptop was lit and ready to go. My dogs were skulking around in the kitchen, waiting for Chad to drop something; anything that didn’t resemble their morning chow.

            The second I saw the door to the bedroom at the end of the hallway open, my hands froze over the keyboard. Then a tremble started in my fingertips and spread through my body like a hungry virus.

An eerie glow preceded the angular, cruel face that peeked out at me. The severe, black eyebrows arched on the figure’s forehead, and his thin lips curled in a devilish grin.

No doubt about it. He would have been more than thrilled to smash my skull in with the Viking-sized sledgehammer in his glowing-white hands.

Just as before, he moved into the hallway to make room for his friend. I didn’t bother to look past him, because I knew the second dark angel was even scarier. Instead, I gazed into the first dark angel’s eyes. I guess I was looking for some ounce of good; miniscule remnants of the dark angel before his fall from grace. There was no sparkle of good in those eyes. It was as though I was staring into twin dark tunnels, waiting for candlelight to flicker against the dusty walls.

What set me in motion was the appearance of a third dark angel. And I thought they couldn’t possibly get bigger! The second one was already hunched in the hallway, swinging his sledgehammer menacingly side to side.

I leapt off the couch and ran into the kitchen. “They’re back! Grab a dog! Let’s go!”

Chad’s blue eyes bugged in his head. “Seriously?” he asked with disbelief in his tone. “Sharon–”

“Just grab a dog! Please! Believe me!”

Chad lunged for a dog while I dove into my shoes. I already had the other dog in my arms, and I knew she could feel my panic. I reached for the door just as Chad peeked around the corner towards the hallway. His yelp of surprise followed me down the deck steps and along the path to the driveway.

Less than a minute later, he was right behind me, screaming, “Go! Go!”

We were at the end of the driveway when we heard the sound of glass shattering.

I couldn’t believe it. They had followed us out of the house this time!

There were four of them, marching toward us like ethereal soldiers with jungle fever. More glass shattered, as the tallest dark angel took out the driver’s side window of Chad’s pick-up truck. Their sledgehammers swung simultaneously, and metal collapsed over rubber. Chad’s truck was a demolished heap on the black asphalt.

The four of them grinned at us before turning their attention to my little, red pick-up. The first blow was a powerful one; the cab was bent inward, so now the roof looked like a giant, red taco without the filling. Three sledgehammers swung wide and hit the side of the truck with the force of a raging bull. The truck toppled over onto its side with a glass-shattering groan.

The four of them laughed, and the trees around us shook with the echo. Strangely, they were coming at us in an organized line, according to height. The first in line was the seven-footer with the empty, black eyes. The next dark angel could easily see over the first one’s head. The third in line was close to ten feet in height. His black sideburns and long, black locks bobbed with his laughter. Had he been flesh, he would have left footprints in the paved driveway, because he looked to weigh about six hundred pounds. The last dark angel in line was enormous; easily a quarter of the height of one of the grown pine trees which lined our driveway. Even his sledgehammer was bigger than the ones the others sported.

I remember wondering if it was a requirement for dark angels to have black hair. I guess it was just one of those stupid thoughts that can occur to you in a surreal moment.

Their intentions were clear. We were about to meet the same fate as our crumpled trucks! Chad and I exchanged a desperate glance. Chad’s blues darted down the street worriedly. I was so amazed by what we’d just witnessed that I wasn’t thinking clearly. So when Chad started down the street, I followed in a daze.

“Wait! Come back!” the shortest dark angel called after us. His eerily glowing cronies laughed behind him.

I glanced over my shoulder just as one of the dark angels swung at our mailbox. The box flew off the wooden post with a pop and landed somewhere in a cluster of bushes.

The four of them were laughing again. One of them mocked our retreat. “Run! Run!” His creepy voice seemed to chase us down the street and run alongside us.

Ahead, I could see a neighbor playing basketball with his two teenaged boys. The three of them were bundled up in their winter jackets, and they were breathing plumes of frosty mist.

The next few seconds seemed to stretch on forever. I was painfully aware of our footfalls slapping against the pavement. My breaths were coming in gasps. It was more from an overwhelming fear of the danger we were putting this family in, rather than exhaustion from the short run in the cold.

“Run! Get in your house and stay there!” Chad warned them. A squeak in his voice proved that he too was afraid of what the dark angels would do to them.

The family turned to stare at us with matching expressions of disbelief. They couldn’t see the trouble brewing behind us yet. We had only managed to startle them out of their family game.

“They’re nuts,” one of the boys said behind his hand as though he was trying to keep a secret. His father just nodded in response, almost as if he felt sorry for us.

“Just run for cripes sake!” I cried, motioning behind us. “There’s something following us! You’re in danger!” I almost tripped at that point. I was so busy concentrating on communicating the danger that I momentarily forgot how to run.

“Yeah, you’re in danger!” one of the dark angels called behind us.

The father of the boys craned his neck to see who was agreeing with me. The second he spotted our glowing pursuers, his jaw dropped in shock, and his face turned ashen. The basketball fell to the pavement with a dull thump, and the father gathered his sons close. “Boys, get to the house! Go!”

Finally, they were running for the safety of their house. At least I hoped they would be safe in their house.

“Go, go, go!” the father urged, pushing his boys ahead of him. He continued to glance over his shoulder in alarm until he closed the front door behind him. Then three faces pressed against a window, all with eyes as wide as naval oranges.

“What do we do?” I whispered to Chad. “They’re gaining on us!”

“We should have gone the other way,” he told me with a grimace. “This way is a dead end. We’re screwed!”

“We should knock on someone’s door,” I suggested, shooting a glance behind us. “Maybe they’ll go away if we’re in someone else’s house.” I was crying now, and it was so cold the tears felt like freezing rain rolling down my cheeks.

There were only six more houses left on the block. After that, a wide, circular dead end opened up to woods. We only had a few more minutes to make a decision. Which decision would make them go away, though?

Behind us, the ghostly four were destroying a car parked at the end of a driveway. I could hear the screech of steel against metal as their enormous sledgehammers bit into the Honda Civic again and again. Surely the tallest giant could have just crushed the bubbly car underfoot! It seemed as though they were having far too much fun with their destructive horseplay, though.

We had just passed two more houses, and it was time to make a decision. At the next house, a man was two stories up on scaffolding. He was installing new vinyl siding.

I don’t remember making the decision. The next thing I knew, I was trudging up the driveway with Chad at my side. I called to the worker on the scaffolding, but he merely hollered back that the owners were in the house.

We ran for the side door, and Chad pounded on its green, metal surface.

The door was hesitantly pulled open by a petite woman with wide, brown eyes, set in a could-pass-for-pretty face. Her voice was just as tiny as she was, when she asked, “Yes?”

“Please, let us in,” I pleaded. “Someone…I mean, these things are trying to kill us.”

“Please,” Chad added, glancing toward the road. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

“Yeah! Let us in!” one of the dark angels called from the road.

The four specters were nearing the end of the driveway. The worker on the scaffolding was still oblivious to the danger we’d brought with us. He was going about his business meticulously, not bothering to look over his shoulder toward the mocking voice.

“What are they?” the woman at the door asked while backing away from the threshold. “Oh, God, I have a daughter! What are they?” Her wide, brown eyes grew even larger at the sight of the four ghostly giants floating toward us.

Chad pushed me into the house and stepped in behind me. He slammed the door behind him, and then his hand shot out to work the locks. “I’m sorry,” he told the woman, who had backed against the entryway wall fearfully. “We didn’t know what else to do. They claim to be dark angels, and they won’t go away. They followed us here.”

The woman flinched, and then she darted out of the room. She was calling someone’s name. We heard her pounding footsteps on stairs and then above us.

Chad and I exchanged a worried and terrified look. “What have we done?” I groaned. I felt trapped, and I was sure Chad felt the same way. Had we doomed these people? All they’d done was open their door to us!

Chad and I hugged, squeezing our dogs between us. “We’re going to die,” I said with certainty. The tears were flowing freely now.

“We’re going to die!” a dark angel screeched, pressing his eerie, white face against the kitchen window. “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?” His grin stretched across his face, displaying a row of crooked, black teeth. “We just want to pull the hair on your chinny-chin-chin!”

The other dark angels burst out in laughter. They were directly behind their leader, grabbing at their sides, amused by our tormentor’s stab at humor.

The pounding on the door began immediately after I told them to go away. The bangs echoed through the kitchen, sounding ominously like the drum roll before a hanging. We watched fearfully as the door bowed inward with each crash.

“Let’s go!” Chad said, grabbing my arm. “Upstairs! Now!”

We raced into the next room and found the stairs to the second floor. While ascending the carpeted steps, we heard a yelp of pain just to our right. There was a custom-made picture window opposite of where the stairs curved to the left. One of the dark angels had just swung his sledgehammer into the back of the worker’s knees. The yelp we heard was accompanied by the worker’s backward freefall off the scaffolding, along with a short shriek on his way to the ground. A thump followed.

Glass shattered behind us. A sledgehammer had just breached the picture window!

We had made it up the last stretch of steps, and we were safely on the next landing. But for how long?

The room opened up at the top of the stairs. We were now in what appeared to be a family room. The first thing I saw was a shotgun, pointed directly at me. I screamed and danced to the left.

“No!” Chad yelled, throwing out his free hand. “Stop!”

The woman with the wide eyes shot out a hand to stay the man. “They’re not the threat, Thomas! It’s those things behind them! Shoot them when they come!”

The man begrudgingly lowered his shotgun but glanced around wildly for the threat his wife claimed was coming. Having averted a disastrous wrongful shooting, she turned back to the crying girl behind her. The woman’s scrawny, bruised arms circled around the girl, who was a mirror image of her wide-eyed mother.

Watching the pair cling together made me momentarily forget why we were standing in their second floor family room. I hadn’t noticed the blotches of black and blue on the mother when she answered the door. Now they were hard to miss. Her daughter was wearing a pretty day dress which clashed with the purple-green bruises just below her neck. Together they painted a sad story; a battered and weary tale. What bothered me most was the expression on the little girl’s face. Her fearful grimace seemed to come natural, almost as if she wore it regularly.

“What the…” someone gasped.

A deafening blast sounded, violently yanking me from the suppositions forming in my mind. Chad quickly pushed me behind him and closer to the mother/daughter pair.

“What the hell are they?” the man shouted, firing another round.

The ghostly foursome seemed to overtake the room as they floated up the steps and hovered in a semi-circle around us. The tallest of them had to dip his head to the side despite the vaulted ceiling. Mother and daughter wept beside me, and Chad slipped the dog he’d carried into my arms. I squeezed my two furry babies against my chest and cried, fearing the worst.

The man with the shotgun was backing up, cowardly moving behind his wife and kid. Chad was the one to step forward and demand, “What do you want? Why are you here? Why us for God’s sake?”

One of the dark angels floated out of the semi-circle and closed in on us. He’d been the first to emerge from our back bedroom, and he appeared to be their leader. He calmly tilted his head to the side and grinned, causing his angular, white face to glow like a madman’s. “We’re dark angels!” he hissed at Chad. His expression turned even more menacing, when he growled, “We bring death. Who’s going to die?”

The ghostly trio behind him snickered and swung their sledgehammers in unison; their faces were ugly sneers, and their weapons ticked side to side like the pendulum on a grand clock.

“Nobody’s going to die,” Chad bravely stated, pressing both his palms outward. “You’ve chased the wrong people! We don’t deserve to die. We didn’t do anything wrong. Go chase someone who has done something…something horrible!”

The leader of the dark angels stuck out his tongue. It smacked against his lips as if he loved the taste of fear. Then his head craned awkwardly to the right so he could glance at his crazed cohorts. A silent message seemed to pass between the leader and his followers. Then his head snapped back to the left. His eyes were fastened on Chad, and they held no mercy. “Death!” he bellowed in a larger-than-life voice.

The word echoed around us, shaking the furniture and rattling the windows. Odd as it sounds, that one word was both a threat and a command. Something was happening. Something, I swear to God, I hope I never witness again.

The swinging sledgehammers froze in place, and the ghastly trio merged.

They had moved into a straight line, so that the smallest of them was in front. The one in the middle, who stood around ten feet in height, opened his long, billowy coat and voiced a maddening roar. The eight-foot giant in front of him gave one last inhuman grin, and then he stepped backward. The giant behind him absorbed him; there was a meshing of images and a loud pop, and then the smaller one was gone!

The ten-foot giant closed his coat with a pain-filled sigh. He was taller now, nearly as tall as the giant behind him.

The leader’s eyes glowed whiter as he watched, almost as if he’d gained power from their fusion. The rest of us remained silent, except for the mother and daughter who continued to weep beside me.

What happened next was practically predictable. The largest giant opened his calf-length coat and absorbed the giant in front of him.

Strange how the mind works. I had a brief glimpse in my head of the hand-painted, purple and gold, Russian nesting dolls I keep on a shelf at home. The concept was similar. Except the story those dolls tell is one of tradition, and the one I was witnessing was anything but traditional!

The largest giant threw back his head and gave a roar of agony when the absorption was complete. When his head fell forward again, his face was a macabre mask of hatred. His eyes were glowing pools of white, and his cheeks were gray with bluish, vein-like streaks. He was ridiculously large now. He had to hunker down below the ceiling, and his lower half was several feet below the floor. He swung his sledgehammer up to his shoulder and gave another roar – this one sounded bellicose in nature.

The leader tilted his head once more, as if he was waiting for orders from someone we couldn’t see. Then his pointer finger shot out, aimed at me. I hugged my dogs close, thinking the time had come. I was going to die!

“I hear your thoughts,” the leader hissed at me. “Are we not the most heinous Matryoshka you’ve ever seen?” He was referring to the Russian nesting dolls I’d pictured in my head. His laugh rocked the lamp on a nearby end table. “You led us!” he claimed ominously. “You choose!”

I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to choose which one of us should die via the ghastly giant’s enormous sledgehammer, which had grown in size just as he had.

“I…I can’t!” I cried, squeezing my dogs. “Please, just go away!”

The leader’s head fell back, and his next bellow shook the entire house. “CHOOSE!”

I continued to cry, knowing I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t condemn another person to death. I didn’t have the right.

I looked at Chad, who was still bravely faced off with the menacing leader. My dearest Chad. I couldn’t choose him. Never!

Then I turned to look at the battered mother and daughter. The mother was on her knees, desperately clutching her daughter. Their tears were spilling and they were cheek to cheek. I couldn’t choose them!

My gaze found the woman’s shotgun-wielding husband. The shotgun had wilted in his hand as though it was a dying flower. His bravery had disappeared the second the ghosts had defied his shotgun. His eyes were downcast. He seemed to be praying for me not to choose him.

I was just about to say it. I had made my choice, and I was just about to say it aloud.

To my surprise, the mother stood. She moved her daughter behind her, keeping her hands on her daughter’s tiny waist. Then they stepped forward and away from the man holding the shotgun, as if they were one. Their shivers of fear became one unified shiver, yet it was a shiver evolving; evolving from fear to bravery.

One of the woman’s bruised arms stretched backward and out, and her curled pointer finger straightened little by little. When it was lengthened to its fullest, it was pointed accusingly toward her husband. Her voice was tiny and fearful when it came out, but it also held a note of relief. “He beats us. He…does things to my daughter, Sarah. Take him.”

She sobbed when her husband shook his head. His denial seemed weak, when anyone who looked could see the evidence of her testimony all over her arms and across her daughter’s upper chest.

“No! She’s lying!” he protested in a panicked tone. He was backing up, shaking his head with each step.

His contradictive accusation seemed to be her breaking point. With every ounce of energy in her, she wailed, “TAKE HIM!”

“Take him,” I agreed, having made the same choice.

The woman fell to her knees, her energy depleted. Little Sarah coiled her arms around her mother’s neck loosely and buried her face in her mother’s hair.

The largest dark angel floated forward, toward the retreating man. The man made one last stand, fumbling to reload his shotgun. His hands shook as he pushed two new shells into place and cocked the shotgun, aiming it at the encroaching glowing giant.

A single blast came from the shotgun. The shot did nothing to impede the giant’s approach. His sledgehammer swung off his bulbous shoulder and off to the side. His weapon was ready to strike, and the leader had given a nod of approval. Only…Chad was in the way!

Just as the giant’s sledgehammer swung wide, I let out an anguished, “No!” As if I’d been punched hard in the gut, my breath left me and I collapsed to my knees.

I gasped for air as I watched the ghostly sledgehammer pass right through Chad’s midsection and connect with the abusive husband and father. The blow knocked him back against the wall. His crumpled body landed in a heap on the floor.

At first I thought he was unconscious, but then he pushed up to his knees, looking as though he was prepared to beg for his life. That was when the shotgun hit the floor and went off.

The man looked down at his chest in dismay. In the next breath, he fell forward, and the shotgun clamored to the floor beside him.

The ghostly giant was gone, though his laughter echoed around the room for another long minute.

The leader of the dark angels floated toward me. His white, angular face wore a satisfied expression. The shock of black hair that fell over his forehead seemed to point to his severe lips, which formed a mirthful smile – the first I’d seen from him.

He opened his long coat with a laugh. Inside, stretching from his chest to his groin in a vertical row, were the ghostly faces of his cronies. Their grins were wide and reflected the same euphoria.

He closed his coat and winked at me. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for me. There was a body on the floor, and a family had been torn apart, yet, I felt happy.

“You chose wisely,” he hissed. He was disappearing before my eyes! Finally only his voice was left, fluttering around us like an anxious butterfly. “You shall choose again. We will see you then.”

A quiet stillness fell over us; the survivors. The mother was on her feet. She held her daughter in front of her protectively. They were both gazing at their motionless tormentor. His blood was a thick black-red pool around his body.

I shivered, holding my dogs close. Chad moved over to me and wrapped us in his arms. “We have to call the police.”

Chad’s statement broke the mother’s reflective gaze. She and her daughter turned away from the body and fell in beside us. “What do we tell them?” she asked.

I looked around the room, unsure of what to say. It was then that I noticed the picture window halfway up the stairs. It was intact! My eyes darted around the room. There was no evidence left of the dark angels’ visit. I was betting that the front door had miraculously returned to its former state, too.

“Looks to me like your husband attacked you with the shotgun,” I commented softly.

The story seemed to take on a life of its own. The woman nodded and agreed. “It’s not the first time he’s come after us. Just look at the bruises on my little Sarah. It’s a shame he dropped the shotgun while he was threatening to kill us. Who would have guessed that it would go off like that and kill him?”

“We should go,” Chad told me. “It doesn’t make sense for us to be here.” He patted the woman’s arm and squatted to hug little Sarah. “Good luck,” he told them.

Chad and I left through the front door, which showed no signs of being smashed in by giant sledgehammers. I finally released our dogs, and we all walked home. The sun had gone down a while ago, and the sky was a shade away from indigo. Fresh flakes were just beginning to fall.

“What if they come back?” I asked, watching the flakes cause a mist above us.

Chad’s arm snaked over my shoulders, and he sighed. “Maybe we should move?”

“Won’t they just find us?” I said. It was more of a statement than a question. I knew that the dark angels would find us no matter where we lived. I could feel it in my bones. The leader’s last-minute smile had held more than satisfaction; it had also held innuendo. He would be seeing me again, just like he’d said. When…was anybody’s guess.

Chad and I held hands on the walk up our driveway. Our dogs trotted ahead of us, happy to finally be on their own feet. Our trucks were parked at the top of the driveway, no longer demolished.

I smiled at Chad, and he returned the smile. I couldn’t help but feel blessed. We had survived the day’s terrifying events. Plus, a mother and her daughter could start anew. It was a blessing within a tragedy.

I thought of our hot tub room – opposites collide. When opposites collide, the clash can create a symphony. I sure do like the sound of that.

***

            I’m not saying that you have to believe the story I’ve just told, but I ask that you consider the possibilities. Isn’t it possible that a mother and daughter’s new path could be born from tragedy? And isn’t it possible that a tragedy is somehow destined to be? Can’t a tragedy be a good thing sometimes?

            So, now you know why this story haunts me. Does anyone really have the right to decide another’s destiny? Before this happened to me, my answer would have been no.

            What would you have decided? Would you have refused to decide and let an innocent person die? Would you have sacrificed yourself when you knew an abusive animal was in the room with you?

Decisions…decisions. They are a weight felt on one’s shoulders.

Probably these types of decisions are best made when you walk in the moment.

Worse yet, I know with certainty that I will be called upon by those same dark angels to decide another’s fate.

But that will be another story entirely.

Yes, I…we made a choice. And months later, after hours and hours of thought, I still believe I made the right choice.

The End

Copyright March 2008 ~ Sheila Roy