Peeper part two

Peeper part two

The force holding me suspended was weakening as Johnny stated to disappear and I found I could lift my eye away from the 'scope. The instant my vision cleared from the scene I regained control of myself and the pain from my already cramped back returned, making me gasp with a hastily drawn intake of breath.

         If Johnny still lived it was my moral duty to set him free as I was the one who instigated this nightmare event. I stood with all the constitution of a blind drunk wino, my sight was almost non-functioning having been focused in one spot for too long and my body felt like it was not mine to command. My back pain was overruling everything else as I lurched across the room and stumbled down the stairs to the front door.

         My eyesight had returned to normal by the time I had reached the front door, but my bodily reflex’s were still hampered by stiffness and the adrenalin surging through my veins was causing spasms in my under-used calf and thigh muscles making me perform a weird lurching stride. 

         I must have projected an unusual figure as I began to run down the street in the Bedmore's direction, stumbling and hitting my legs with the edge of my fists to try and bring them back to life.

         As I reached the end of my road and began to run down the interconnecting street between my house and the one I had viewed all night, a severe cramp in my right calf  caused me to collapse to the ground in a uncontrolled heap, my muscle had been turned to stone and made totally inoperable.

          I had a strange deja vu feeling reminiscent of the force that had pinned me to my chair while I was observing Johnny. It suddenly dawned on me that whatever extraneous power had called the distortion into being was also controlling the outside factors to produce a scenario favourable to the ending of its aims. In other words the force was hampering me, trying to stop me getting to the Bedmore's by inflicting physical pain so that it could digest, or whatever the hell it was doing to Johnny before I could reach it and stop it, though how I was going to do that I didn't have clue.

         The very process of realisation that I had been manipulated lessened the pain in my calf and I was able to carry on towards my destination. Thoughts ran around my already numbed mind making it even fuzzier. I could trace the manipulation back to that starry night when my soul was filled with the nostalgia of lost longing of childhood astronomy and the compulsion of having to buy a telescope just like my grandfather’s. Looking back on that period of my life in the retrospect of what I had just discovered I became aware that it wasn't as rosy or as cherished as I had then thought. The period of my encounter with astronomy could not have lasted more than a few days let alone a week and as for my grandfather's telescope it was a old flea-bitten, almost unviewable (because of it's scratched lens) piece of apparatus that filled me with a type of disinterested loathing all children get when they are handed something used when they wanted something new.

         Something must have prodded those nostalgic feelings forward and intensified them to make me emotionally subjective to purchasing or seeking out the cursed telescope.  The fact of me becoming a peeper, something that is totally against the grain of my character must also have been imposed by whatever stimulus which was at play inside of me.

         The more I thought of the deception I had been under for the past few weeks the more clearer my mind became, the more sharper my anger became, the more foolish I felt for being beguiled into such a situation. I was indirectly responsible for the injury and perhaps the death of a young boy and I knew no matter how much I lamented my past behaviour it wasn't going to change this unbelievable, unearthly situation that was occurring, but I was going to try my best to remedy it as quickly as possible, if it was conceivable that it could be stopped.

         I suppose that the over-riding emotion playing through me as I ran down the street was one of wanting to be redeemed, I was going to the Bedmore's house more to save myself than Johnny. I knew that if I had turned and ignored all that had happened I was dammed forever, dammed to never being able to look myself in the face, dammed never to feel human again, at that moment rushing towards my destiny. The fact that I could be running towards my demise did not compare to the fact I was running towards my salvation.

         I had regained the use of my legs by the time I battered my way through the Bedmore's front gate, which hit the brick wall behind it and swung violently back narrowly missing me. I headed directly for the front door with no intention of stopping, I braced my shoulder and smashed myself into the centre of the mock nineteenth century, wood panelled door. I'm afraid that I was taken up with the idea that is often shown on television of the doors giving way under the macho exertions of detectives and policemen etc. The most I managed was to pop one panel from its frame and to damn near rip my arm from its socket. 

         I thrust my good arm through the broken panel and swung it madly to and fro trying to connect with the door knob and lock, my hand brushed the door knob and went back to grab it firmly and twisted. The door swung inward, it wasn't locked, but I didn't have the time nor the inclination to find the humour of the situation.

         Mr Bedmore was in the hallway that joined the porch to the living room probably coming to see what had hit his door with such force, his expression turned from one of annoyed inquiry to one of surprise as he saw me stumble into his house grasping my right arm. I think the first thing that went through his mind was that he was going to be burgled by the world’s most inept thief, but as he recognised me his surprised countenance became even more baffled.

         " Paul? What in gods name are you doing? " His tone of voice began to change from astonishment to concern. “What’s happened to you? You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards."

         He reached out to support me as I tried to push past him aiming for the stairs and grabbed me firmly on the shoulders which sent a bolt of pain running down my injured right arm. I wrenched myself away from his excruciating embrace. "Johnny's up there dying, I've got to help him." I gasped.

         Bedmore's stance stiffened even more, his voice became guarded as it dawned on him that he was facing a man who was probably not firing on all cylinders and who was spouting on about his son being in danger. We've all heard of how unhinged people invade homes bringing death in their wake, god knows there's enough of it reported in the news, this thought was written as clear as day upon his face and I knew that all my persuasion and explaining would not help him change his mind before it was too late to save Johnny.

         Mrs Bedmore came into the hallway at precisely the right moment.  " Andrew? What’s...?”

         She never had a chance to finish her sentence. I rammed myself into Mr Bedmore toppling him and made for the stairs, Bedmore was prepared for such an attack and was rebounding from the wall and pursuing me before his wife could even break the spell of shock which was immobilising her and run toward the phone and call for help.

         I made the top of the stairs in good time for my condition, but Bedmore was more agile and therefore quicker than I was and was breathing down my neck as I reached the landing.

         The silence of the atmosphere hit me like a solid wall, there was absolutely no noise what so ever, which explained why Bedmore was calmly sat downstairs while his son was slowly being cooked alive upstairs. Only ten meters away and even though the distortion had almost ripped the bedroom apart there was nil damage on any of the outside frames of the four doors that lined the landing, giving me no indication which door I was to enter.

         I stood there in the dilemma and hesitation of choice when Bedmore crashed into the back of me  propelling me to the ground,  the sound of air rushing from my lungs resonated in my ears, a hoarse whooping bark of compressed exhalation.

         I hit the floor, rolling twice taking Bedmore with me and we crashed into the wall with unchecked momentum. Luckily he was sandwiched between me and the wall and he took the brunt of the impact, as he lay there winded I wrenched myself from his hold and stood up. I reached out to grab the nearest door handle and got myself into a half standing stance when Bedmore grabbed my ankle and pulled my feet away from me with a vicious sweep. I collapsed backwards and leant on the door handle for support, as I tumbled to the ground the door swung inwards and came to a sudden halt half ajar, revealing the nightmare landscape of Johnny's bedroom and filling the small landing with a staccato of noise and vicious air currents.

         Bedmore's attack lost all impetus as he spotted the scene beyond me. “Christ." He comprehended I was telling the truth and that his son was in danger in one swift glance.
“Johnny?" He turned to me, "Help me get this fucking door open."

         Not waiting for an answer he charged at the door and started to batter it with all he could muster. A stalagmite projecting from the floor was in the doors arc of movement and hindered it from opening.

         I joined Bedmore and lent my weight against the door with his. It gave way sheering the stalagmite from it's position and flinging it across the room where it came to rest on the far wall displaying it's innards to show it was composed of nothing more than plaster and floorboards melded together.

         A pale blue light filled the room casting shadows of darker blue in all directions. The luminescence reminded me of the light from cinema projectors piecing the darkness and reflecting from every speck that floated in the air.

         The distortion was at the far side of the room generating a howling wind which stirred up the dust and grit caused by the recent upheavals into mini cyclones and tore at our exposed skin, making our eyes into narrow slits. I noticed the change in it. More potent now than when I had last seen it, the grey-black colour had darkened to a midnight purple curdled with ribbons of a creamy white. The noise it was producing was thunderous, it felt as though we were in the middle of a hurricane being buffeted from side to side by invisible but commanding currents.
         
         The atmosphere, thickened by the charge of energy, was  filled with a salty, briny tang that felt greasy as it slid down my lungs adding to my urge to vomit away the unnaturalness.  Johnny's trainers and ankles were all of him that remained visible, they were roughly positioned in the centre of the distortion and disappearing rapidly.

         Bedmore shouldered me to one side and leapt at the distortion, grasped on to one of Johnny’s legs sticking out from its convoluted surface and started to heave.

         I joined Bedmore and grabbed Johnny's other foot with  such unchecked ferocity that my sweated palms slipped and I nearly plunged my fists the distortion. Close up I could see the damage that had been done to Johnny's leg and ankle, such was the power of the shock pumped into his body to subdue him that his trainer had melted and melded into the flesh of the leg and caused one continuous surface from sole to calf.

         Putting both my hands on the trainer I  turned round to look at Bedmore. He was bent over and heaving, looking like a weight-lifter with an immovable mass, exertion and panic shone from his face brightly. I turned back and tugged.

         It was like trying to move a post set in concrete there was no give in the legs position what so ever. I clasped hard onto the trainer, hard enough to alter its shape and put my whole body into tearing the leg and its owner out of that eerie gateway to god knows where.

         Despite my efforts it moved no further than before. I rocked back on my heels and lent all  of my weight to gain more leverage and finally there was movement, but the movement was accompanied with a loud gristly pop and I released the shoe when I realised what I had done.

         Johnny's foot dangled limply from his ankle where I had pulled it out of its socket and the skin of his calf had parted company with the top of the trainer exposing a thin line of bright crimson muscle.

         Bedmore had come to the same conclusion that I had, we were never going to get Johnny out without seriously injuring or crippling him for life and I think that's what finally pushed Bedmore over the edge of sanity. His face turned from a deep red to a deeper purple, the furrows on his brow deepened to  canyon proportions, but most of all his eyes indicated to me what he was going to do next, they bulged and whirled in their sockets madly reassembling those of an animal caught in a trap contemplating doing something drastic to escape it's predicament.

         I snatched hold of Bedmore's jacket just as he flung himself towards the distortion, hauled him back while he was in  mid-air and thrust him to the floor where I tried my best to pin him down. His face held no recognition of the situation he was  in, he panted and frothed spittle from his lips onto his  shirt collar. I opened my mouth to speak and try to bring him out of his revere but before I could make any coherent sound he drove his knee squarely into my groin. My senses fled before a white wall of pain which crawled into my abdomen and burned  there brightly.

         I was brought back to reality by Bedmore throwing me off him and as I lay there incapable of movement I saw Bedmore rush towards the distortion and hurl himself at it. He raised his arms as if he meant to dive through the distortion. His arms failed to penetrate the surface which gave only a little under the drive of his thrust and they crumpled throwing the rest of him onto the translucent exterior with the sound of someone slapping water. He rebounded a little and stood there swaying from side to side with a dazed and numbed countenance which gave me the opportunity to crawl up on my knees and then endeavour to stand up in an attempt to stop his assault.

         I reached out, but with my crippled posture I was only able to brush the material of his jacket and the wasps nest in my guts flared up to a clamour of pain. I had to lower my head for a second or two to stop the black spots that were dancing in front of my eyes.

         As I rose my head and readied myself for a second bid to stop Bedmore I noticed a shard of glass on the floor from a broken mirror which reflected into my eyes, a piecing blue light shone from it dazzling me, it was the same blue light which filled the whole room.

         At first I thought the light originated from that tiny reflecting piece of glass then it dawned on me that it was angling a beam of light emanating from the window on the opposite wall. Glancing across the room and through the window I saw a speck of brightness in the distance from which the blue light flowed across from and into Johnny's bedroom. I stood there puzzled and then the truth hit me like locomotive, the difference in perspective  had thrown me for a while but then I realised that the speck of luminance was radiating from my bedroom window. The source of the distortion was my telescope, in my panic of trying to save Johnny I'd ran half way across my neighbourhood and put distance between me and the only way of really saving him.

         I turned round to tell Bedmore of my findings hoping I could shake him from his stupefied state but I'd no need to fear he was already awake and charging the distortion again instead of battering it with his body again he started to smash his fists onto the glutinous face which had by now swallowed his son completely.

         Johnny's soles of his trainers were all that was visible of him and they were covered with a film of the gluey transparent body of the distortion, slowly sinking and disappearing from sight. Every blow that Bedmore inflicted on it made the vision wobble and distort. His blows became more and more frantic as the last sight of his son faded, even with all his strength behind the blows he had no more effect than he would if he were punching solid rubber.

         Comprehending the futility of his actions he sank to his knees and while weeping tears of frustration and fear he started to try and dig at the skin that was between him and his sons vanishing soles.

         Having got some of my strength back I crossed to where  he was knelt  and grasped him hard on the shoulders trying to immobilise him as best as I could. I shouted onto his ear. "We can't help him this way, we're going to have to stop this at it source."

         I spun him around to face the window and showed him the beam of light shining into the room. It took only a moment for him to work out where the light was coming from and even less for him to connect me with the cause of the predicament we were in now.

         "Bastard!" He spat at me with uncontrolled vehemence. He broke my grip and swung at me with a powerful vigour. I raised my hands towards my face in the hope of deflecting the blow but it did not connect. I chanced a look through my clenched fingers to see Bedmore struggling with a link that had shot out and wrapped around his wrist biting deep into the flesh.

         I reached out to help him and brought my hands back with an instinctive jerk. If I were to get entrapped by the distortion trying to help Bedmore none of us would be able to stop the ordeal we were going through. My only option was to get to my bedroom as quick as possible and try to disable the telescope that was giving life to this nightmarish situation.

         Bedmore took my withdrawal as cowardice and panic began  to fill him as he realised he was being abandoned. "Meerston don't leave me, get me out of this fucking thing," he pleaded.

         "That's the only way to stop it." I pointed out of the window towards the blue light. "If I can get up there and destroy the 'scope were in with a chance."

         "Fuck that, get me away from this thing or it'll eat me alive just like Johnny," Bedmore's voice had risen to a shriek. I didn't have time to stop and argue all I could do was shake my head and go to exit the room.

         "Meerston you bastard, don't leave me to die, please get me out please, pleeease." In his desperation to be free he thrashed  to and fro against the link ripping his skin. A small rivulet of blood ran down his arm and began to stain his jacket a deep red. Another link was created and snaked its way around Bedmore's throat to stabilise him, he was cut of mid sentence by its crushing grip.

         As I reached the door I turned to look back and saw Bedmore  hanging there with his pleading eyes doing all his communicating and one arm reached out beseeching me to come back. I'm afraid to say sympathy overcame my common sense and I turned to help him from the distortion's grip.

         Two steps back into the room I realised my mistake. A link was spat at me and streaked across the room to embrace me. Taking one step in retreat I knew I had done the wrong thing. In returning to free Bedmore I had imprisoned myself and lost the only hope we had to free ourselves.

         The link came within a foot of my chest and then began  to sizzle and pop. Its very substance started to evaporate before me like ice hitting a wall of flame. The distortion could only sustain itself within a given area. Three more links were spewed forth and hurled in my direction only to meet the same fate. The four tendrils whipped and lashed in the air trying to break the barrier of its limitation and the air was soon filled with a rotten and putrid stench of decay. I backed away thankful of my lucky chance and the links increased their thrashing.

         I grasped the door handle and tugged but the difference in pressure between the room and the hallway made  it difficult for me to open. Forcing it ajar to a small crack I could feel the air rush out of the room and my ears pop.

         I shook my head and swallowed hard to clear my ears and from the corner of my eyes noticed a change in the distortion. It had grown smaller and a bulge had started to protrude from its centre. It quivered and shook weakly and the thought went through my mind that the injuries its links had sustained had somehow damaged and weakened it.

         Bedmore was succeeding in pulling free, the links that held him were becoming flexible and starting to sag. I hesitated to see what was happening, if the links became weaker I would-be able to pull Bedmore free myself.

         The distortion had faded from a murky brown to an almost dead black and the atmosphere of lose energy that filled the air began to subside, the bulge on the facade had taken a mattered yellow hue and was swelling.

         I heard Bedmore gasp for breath as the link around his throat loosened. He collapsed to his knees and the link on his wrist flopped to the floor with a trail of unhealthy looking slime trailing from it.

         I decided that Bedmore was able to escape what was left of the links on his own and opened the door once more. A shudder ran through the room dislodging whatever lose dust had settled. The distortions bulge unsealed itself and spat a projectile at me. At first I thought it was another link but as it landed on my left hand I saw it was separate from the distortion completely.  It was large enough to cover the back of my hand. Like the links this fragment also began to evaporate with a foul stench. The coldness it gave off as it disappeared numbed my arm from the elbow downwards. I clawed at it with revulsion and disgust, thick  globules clinging to my fingers no matter how hard I tried to  scrape them off.

         I wiped my left hand on my trousers and examined it closely, there was something under the skin that was burrowing up towards  my arm. Bile rose to my mouth and I started to slam my infected hand against the wall hoping to crush it and after several blows I noticed that the distortion was cranking up its power.

         The surroundings were getting the feel of greasiness again and the ambient charge made my hair stand away from its roots. My hand throbbed with a warm, sharp pulse which the  lump under my skin copied, swelling and receding with its own life. I tried to dig it out of the skin, tearing and ripping deep with my nails but in the time taken to split  the  skin the lump had retreated further into my arm, so far in fact that it started to disappear from view wiggling deep into the meat of my arm.

         The distortion had reclaimed its grip upon Bedmore, numerous tendrils and links were squeezing him tight against the gelatinous exterior and the left hand corner of his jacket was already inside, mingling with the dark purple, showing a rippled spectre of it floating within the body.

         Bedmore was swamped on all his limbs with thick textured links and the only way for him to struggle was with full body jerks giving the impression of him trying to lift the distortion but he was weakening with every movement and his breath  came out in short strained gasps.

         The links changed in hue once again and took on transparency. I knew what was coming next but I was powerless to stop it. Clean blue light pulsed down the links and in to Bedmore's thrashing form. The pulse this time was shorter than  the pulse pumped into Johnny and it succeeded in rendering Bedmore unconscious without frying the skin from his bones. If I couldn't halt the distortion he was going to be sucked in alive.

         I could afford to wait no longer and as the air in the room became more charged. The extract of the distortion worked deeper into my arm. I scrambled for the door which thankfully this time was easier to open and without looking back I flung myself from the room.

         The chaos which filled Johnny's room had spread into hallway. Cracks radiated from the door frame like petals from a diseased bloom and the first meter or so was blocked by stunted stalactites and stalagmites. I felt I was looking out of a huge mouth filled  with crooked dentures. The formations were hollow and weakly  created, they crumpled to my efforts filling the hall and my lungs with a snowstorm of dust and plaster.

         I stumbled to the top of the stairs with my mouth devoid of any moisture it once had. Coughing to clear my throat of its gritty filling and brushing the coat of white dust that had covered me completely, I started down the stairs.

         If my eyes were not blinded by the fine particles and if I hadn’t paused on the bottom stair to clear my vision that would have most probably been the end of me. In the space where I would have next stepped had I not halted, flashed the neat gleam of a long blade followed by the hand and wrist of Mrs Bedmore. The shock of the event  made me stumble forward and  Mrs Bedmore flinched, let out a shaky little shriek and retreated on slippered feet onto the living room. She quickly slammed the door to bar me from following, of which I had no intention.

         I could imagine her crouched there at the  bottom of the stairs, not daring to come any closer with a kitchen knife held bravely in her quivering fist, hoping that her husband would have dispatched this madman before he did any physical harm to him or his son. Then secondly steeling herself to impale me and stop me where her husband had failed. When she failed, her nerves which were already hung onto reality by their fingernails slipped and fell into the abyss terror. She fled gladly leaving someone else to deal with me.

         The freshness of the open air greeted me as I plunged through the front door and into the open air.  I left a dusty cloud trailing behind me of powder and plaster as I sprinted up the path and through the gate.

         I ran from the gate towards the direction of my house  and the source of all my troubles. I was in a much worse state,  than when I had come in this direction unbelievingly not more than quarter of an hour ago and my arm was dragging me down terribly as if I were wearing a gauntlet of lead. My heartbeat was resonating in my chest, the pressure in my eyes built up and dropped in unionism causing my vision to oscillate with bands of colour. Reds, greens and blues shot in and out of my field of sight and my ears began to sing with a high pitched whining.

         The brilliant cycles of colours were hampering my progress  and the surroundings of the night darkened street started to lighten and darken with waves of blue. It was the sound of Mrs Bedmore screeching behind me that brought realism back into my reverie.

         Mrs Bedmore was hopping from foot to foot and held out her arm at the end of which an accusative finger pointed solidly at me. In her fear she had apparently gone mad and forgotten how to speak." Him, it's him, there, him, HIM." Her finger stabbed towards me with every syllable as if she could spear me with her words.

         The waves of blue coloured everything washing the houses in an bright azure and  I halted in my tracks with the disbelief that fate  could not throw any more obstacles than it had already had, I was wrong. A police car was turning into the street,  Mrs Bedmore had been busy while I was upstairs, spitting and screaming down the phone, no doubt urging the constabulary to come with all speed "there's a madman in my house."

         The policemen were experienced enough to know trouble  when they saw it, even if it was diving through a hedge to escape their advancements. The hedge tore at me as I jumped through it, it was dense and made from tall beech trees.  One twig painfully split my nostril as I made my way to the other side and landed in a carefully tended rose patch. There was no need  to turn to see if I was being followed I could hear the rustle of the coppers coat as he entered the garden behind me.

         "Stop where you are, I am an armed police officer," his voice wavered with each running step he took. "This is your first  and last warning," he authoritatively boomed as I disappeared around the corner of  the house. The phrase was spoken unemotionally and robot like as if read from a card held in front of him.

         There were fences and hedges in the gardens to hinder me and they would probably give him the opportunity to bring me down permanently, but I knew I had an advantage over him, he would have to pause at each corner I turned to make sure I wasn't lurking around it. I had to use that advantage if I were to  come out of this without any of those weighty and damaging  bullets inside me.

         I dropped to my knees as soon as I'd turn the corner of  the house, my nose had taken over in the pain stakes from my arm and each pulse of pain made my eyes blur with the tears they produced. The noise from the fabric of his coat announced  his arrival and the scrape of his shoes slowed as he approached the corner.

         With my eyes cast upwards I saw the nozzle of a short stubby gun slowly enter my field of vision, followed by his hands and arms locked together stiff and alert. I couldn't see his head but to my guess his eyes were more than likely searching the top of the garden where he would expect me to be by now. The tip of his shoe was my visual trigger to move, I grabbed the policeman’s ankles and pulled upwards as strongly as I could in my dilapidated state. He tumbled backwards with a surprised intake of breath. He twisted in mid-air trying to bring his  arms into contact with the concreted floor but he didn't succeed in time, his temple hit the garden path with a meaty, hollow thud and the shock of collision splayed his fingers apart. The gun spat from his fist and skirted off into the darkness.

         I teetered to my feet and staggered to the far end of the garden as quickly as I could manage. My manoeuvre with the  policeman wasn't as successful as I'd like, by his groans I could tell he was up already and the thought of him finding his gun before me clearing the bottom fence added extra momentum to my shambling run.

         I needn't have feared I was over the fence in virtually no time what so ever, in fact the vigour of my leap nearly brought the fencing down with me as I vaulted over.

         The house adjoining the garden had a bedroom light on  which gave me a little illumination to pick my way through  the ill-kept tangle of weeds and brambles which ensnared the  space before the fence. My idea of my whereabouts were vague, but I knew that if I went round to the front of the house  It was logical I would emerge somewhere in my street.

         There was no shouted warning, no stiffened orders this  time, just a loud clap behind me and the wisp of brick dust as the bullet smashed into the house. The policeman had recovered his gun in less time than I would have liked and as I turned the corner I caught a  glance of his shadow stood with his arms resting on the fence I had just cleared. The light from the bedroom had shone dimly into  his eyes and hidden me enough for him to fail with his shot.

         I was lucky, not only did I emerge onto my street but I was only two doors down from my house. I tore down the path and cleared my neighbour's  front gate in one bound.

         My pain was still with me but it was as though it belonged to a different person who floated at my side, I guess it was the adrenalin flowing  through my veins that saw to that. The punishment my body had taken did not seem to affect it as I flew up the street and on to the short path that led to my house.

         The door was still opened wide from where I had crashed through not long ago. My unstable stride ate up the distance of the path and my feet came into contact with the three wooden steps, the entrance of my home. I had just leapt the second  step when a gigantic pressure enveloped my leg and the world spun in a carousel of confusion.

         My surroundings stabilised and I found myself in my hallway. My head was on the floor and one of my legs was resting on the door, the other leg trapped underneath me. The  pain in my leg told me all I needed to know, I'd been shot. The power of my leap added to the velocity of the bullet had flung me past the third step and into my hallway.

         From my position the view of the street was upside-down and blurred. I could see the policeman as he approached. Copying the stance I had seen him in twice before, gun raised, arms locked and now that I was down and he could see I was unarmed, he moved with less caution. As I rolled over to regain an upright position  he broke into a sprint. "Stay exactly where you are," he closed the gap between  us rapidly.

         My left leg refused to move disobeying the commands my  fuzzed brain was screaming at it, I had to grab the trouser material around my shin and heave it out if the way  of the door. Rolling in a semicircle  I kicked the door shut with my able leg. I landed on my buttocks and spun placing my back against the door, my leg flopped down beside me, aching like a bad tooth.

         The policeman's footsteps were very close and as I flipped the latch he hit the first step. The door vibrated in its frame as his shoulder his way into it, the force of the impact drove through the wood in and directly into my back scraping my vertebrae. I reached down and shot the bottom bolt home and made my way towards the stairs, dragging my disabled limb behind me.

         The shot had passed through my shin and had probably shattered my tibia, for the lower part of my leg was bent at an impossible angle. I crawled onto the first stair, there was a stair rail which I was able to use as an inverted ladder and I began to half pull, half crawl my way upstairs.

         The front door rattled three times in quick succession and then fell silent. The door was solid wood without windows which I had installed on the advice of a work colleague after a spate of burglaries in the neighbourhood two years ago. I made a silent note to thank that colleague if I ever got out of this alive.

         Wood sprayed the hallway in keen splinters as he began to try and shoot the lock away, after the third shot the disassembled lump of metal that used to be my lock gave up the fight of keeping my door secure and was propelled in to a dark recess of my hallway taking a chunk out of the wall as it left.

         Every stair got harder to climb, my arms and legs refused  to work in unionism. The lower half of my left leg flopped like a fish and a raw sour pain enveloped it every time I moved.

         The door, lock gone was assaulted again. It swung and pivoted on the bottom bolt. As I cleared the last stair  I heard muffled voices from the outside, he had been joined by his partner. I rounded the landing and faced my bedroom I could hear the door crack and splinter, giving away its position as guardian to the gateway of my house.

         I grabbed the frame of the bedroom door and hauled myself onto the last stop on my journey. The shock of seeing the distortion in my bedroom overcame all the pain I was enduring. Bedmore's half digested body hung in its surface, his feet not touching the ground. How could have the distortion travelled the distance so quickly?

         The image was too flat and shook too much to fool my senses for long. I realised it was a projection being emitted from the scope and cast on the far wall. The telescope glowed as if it was a receptacle for power to strong for it to hold. It trembled and quivered on its frail tripod blurring the image it projected.

         I crawled towards the scope until I was near enough to reach out and try and grab it.  Just a hands breath away from grasping it time melted. My arm became a voice, a speaker for whom images were its words. The splinter that the distortion had planted in my arm welled up mental pictures and pinned me immobilised outside my perception of time. I could not will my arm to move no more than atom by atom towards the scope. The distortion had walled me in its own time frame and image by image it began to communicate to me.

         My awareness of the outside world became hazy, each detail running and melting into one another, until my whole vision was a huge mass of undefined colour. Slowly shapes began to clot together and make the melded colours solidify.

         Pictures of worship within stone circles filled me, dark naked figures shambled around the stones wailing and petitioning to a dark god of life and death. The stones themselves glowed with an unearthly light that cast an atmospheric glow on the assembled crowd of devotees throwing their features into half light.

         The ambient light revealed the peculiarities of the race, their faces like their bodies were long and elegant and although their  frames were wraith-like, delicate even, power emanated from them, not physical power but the undying strength of the will.

         The scene moved and showed the ceremony in a frenzy of motion, one of the figures central to the ritual was guided to the centre by two others, his face covered with the sweat of fanaticism. A blade caught the ambient light and shone through the dimness as it was drawn across his  willingly offered throat. With his  dying energy he directed the gush of blood onto a small, jagged  stump of stone in the centre of the circle. On contact the blood instantly vaporised sending up wasps of steam which instead of dissipating collected into a small cloud around the stump wavering and undulating like a living thing as it drifts into the night air.

         I could feel the  breeze upon my skin and the coppery tang  of the blood cloud filled my nostrils and made me gag, the grass underfoot tickled my toes, each sensation was brought to me as if I was really there.

         The blood cloud condensed inward to a central point and began to move, a tiny dot of mist floating among the worshippers. Silence descended upon the congregation as the ball weaved its way amongst them. Hovering over each dim form before moving to the next, carrying its own light with it, illuminating each figure it passed.

         The ball reached another disciple and  hesitated. It hanged there in the air and with a quickness that defied the eye  to follow it, swelled to the  size of the follower and engulfed him. A great cheer expelled by the rest of the crowd shattered  the silence in to non-existence and through the noise the blood cloud shuddered and quivered to the oscillation of the cheer and exploded into colour revealing the all too familiar form of the distortion.

         The scene shifted again and displayed  a line of followers eagerly throwing themselves into the distortion which pulsated and ran through a series of colours, there was no surface tension this time to slow the passage of the wilful victims only a  small flash of light as each sacrifice was gobbled up into oblivion.

         The glow from the distortion filled the stone circle. I felt the ferocity of the light burn my eyes and just as I thought I could stand the intensity no more it began to dim. The line of followers moved aside falling to their knees.

         The wind grew in its ferocity and the distortion let out an almost childlike howl as its middle began to swell, growing second by second. Colours flooded through its viscid body filling the circle in a throbbing glimmer. The cascade slowed as the gravid bulge began to split open.

         There was a great shudder as one of the stones fell over  crushing a few followers and the earth quaked as cracks snaked their way across the ground. The distortion's split spat out thick strings of a vicious liquid that burnt the ground and slowly a small form emerged, sliding down the face of the distortion and gently hitting the ground.

         The distortion faded in luminance and winked out of existence leaving the small form on the ground surrounded by the followers quiet in awe. I closed upon the scene and saw  that the form was insubstantial. Without any defining features, no light was reflected from it as though it was nothing more than a shadow. The form convulsed and let loose a cry that felled two of the nearest disciples so that they toppled in heaps of uncontrollable spasms.

         The crowd moved as one to a respectable distance and stayed there with an air of undecided fear. One of their numbers, an old stooped  character with the bones so prominent under his dry, transparent skin that they looked ready to leap away from his body at a moments notice, made his way slowly through the crowd and bent towards the form.

         The elder reached out his arms in a fearless manner. They hovered above the form and made supple signs in the air. Wherever his hands traversed a small after effect of twinkling lines followed. The substance from his hands fell onto the form and then into it. Not for one moment did the shape show any sign of tangibility , it just lie there soaking up the twinkling radiance like a black hole.

         In reaction to the old man's attention the form began to react gently rocking and swaying, until he finished his conjuring and lowered his hands in an attempt to scoop up the form. A small but perfectly shaped hand shot from the form and grasped the wrist of the elder who in perfect surprise tried to wrench away standing up as he did so.

         He brought the form with him dangling from his wrist which had started to smoulder and bubble with a nauseous sound. He stumbled through the crowd clearing a path as he did so and finally collapsed sending a plume of smoke into the air.

         The devotees were filled with the indecision of whether to run or stay and were about to disassemble when their attention was called to the outside of the stone circle. A late arrival pushed his way through the crowd which parted in recognition and respect, he was draped in a billowing cloak which flowed with his movement and standing a head taller he towered above the crowd.

         A rather theatrical swoop of the cloak cleared the steam billowing from the elder's body and without hesitation he bent down to pick up the form. The crowd moved back in anticipation fearing a repetition of the previous events. With a shout of triumph he rose clutching the form to his breast and elevated it above his head tenderly supporting it in both hands.

         In his massive hands he held a small child whose very body was as black as the darkest night. Its glossy, inky form reflected the glow from the stones as he spun it above his head showing the child to the crowd which greeted it with a reverent silence.

         He brought it back to his breast and held it looking down on it with joy and wonder. The child raised a wavering hand to his face and spoke with a voice of a thousand years. "Guardian."

         As the scene faded the cloaked man reached up and touched the child's hand. The cloak slipped from his wrist as it did it revealed a small tattooed skull imprinted in the flesh of his arm.

         The scene faded altogether and the real world flickered into view. My eyes were still focused on my hand which had moved no more than when I had first been enveloped by the vision.

         I realised that something didn’t ring true. The policemen should have entered the bedroom with all the time I had spent hallucinating, it seemed that time had not only been suspended  for me but for them also. I started to lose my grip on reality as the distortion pulled me in to another illusion.

         A massive golden throne loomed up in front of me blocking vision of everything else apart from a small figure positioned in its centre. The figure must have been the small child for its limbs and naked torso gleamed like polished ebony reflecting the glint of its surroundings.

         He had grown and looked about the size of a twelve year old. His diminutive form swamped by the volume of the throne radiated a sense of intense force. Small arcs of pure black flame shot from his body and flickered along the length of his golden throne.

         The child turned its head and nodded authoritatively to someone aside him. The scene expanded. The guardian stood to one side, he lifted his staff and rapped it soundly on the floor.

         The scene expanded even more, travelling away from the child as it did. The heads of black armoured soldiers and then their bodies were revealed as the view moved further and further away, rank upon rank of them filled a gigantic hall. The throne was reduced to a small speck inside a sea of black clad warriors and still their ranks did not stop.

         The room in which they were housed began to show itself, epic in proportions. The four walls showed no visible sign of support, no buttresses, no arches just the bare walls rising from the ground and disappearing into heights so great that  the roof of the building was obscured from view.

         The throne was lost in a sea of bodies all stood perfectly  still, the only movement was the flap and wave of an upright standard moving with the breeze that circled the crowd. As soon as the scene had appeared it disappeared, replaced by a blank wall only inches from my nose. I had passed through the wall to the outside of the building. The child had shown me its force of arms now he was going to show me its empire.

         The wall sped quickly away showing its sides were tapered and as it shrunk in perspective the building was revealed as  a colossal pyramid whose tip was swallowed by the clouds it pieced.

         To build such a city as the one unveiling before me could  not have took the time of the child’s growth to it's present age without supernatural help. The city not only covered the landscape it was the landscape, no greenery or sign of life escaped its cover. The only indication of movement was the small wisps of smoke and steam that filtered up from the roofs of the sprawled buildings, collecting into a hazed fog binding to the base of the pyramid and as the scene increased in scope, obliterated their existence under a blanket of opaque cloud.

         Daylight fell on the city but was not absorbed, everything  seemed covered in a matt membrane that coated the panorama  in a deep impenetrable gloom. The buildings themselves had not been constructed by any method I had seen before. No individual brick or stone could be observed, the whole shells were of one piece. A shadowy, glassy substance had been drawn into the shapes of dwellings and from every surface projected sharp  overhangs and edges as if each structure had only been semi-formed and left with no thought for comfort. Each building gave an air of hostility and malevolence, it seemed impossible  that living creatures could make these their homes without imitating the characteristics of their surroundings.

         The pyramid in the distance gave the illusion of floating  on air with its base obscured, its bulk commanded the eye to observe it, drawing the vision and holding it.

         The outskirts of the metropolis emerged and the spaces of bare ground shown between shanty like dwellings scattered around the area was scarred and greasy. The plain that opened up beyond looked used up and well trodden. Every sign of life was stunted and warped, nothing above ankle height grew there. Ill looking, mattered grass clung to the barren soil in a desperate attempt to suck up nutrients from its uncharitable depths. 
                                                                                 
         The inhabitants of this sickly place were huddled into groups, hoping for protection from the ceaseless mist and chilling rain that clung to their undernourished forms, soaking them to the bone. They were of the same race as the one that conjured  up the distortion, the same that met the emergence of the child with such reverent silence and wonder, not having the foreknowledge that he would enslave them instead of enlighten them to wonders they would never know.

End of part two