Chapter One

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Psalm 116:15

* * *

Les Murphy erupted from his sleep gasping for air and drenched in sweat. He reeled his head around the room and, if he could’ve, he would scream as loud as possible.He couldn’t tell his nightmare had ended. Les thought he was still in it, just in another pocket of the dream world in which he was forced to venture off to. Mr. Murphy kept thrashing and searching for oxygen as he wasted every breath of air he had in him. His eyes refused to open and all he could see were horrible, horrible images of what he feared and what he had lost.

His mind was about to snap. There had been times in the past when it all became too much for Les Murphy and he simply let go. Any action he performed was acted upon by the subconscious of mind; all that he could not control. When this happened, all he could see were the colors of black, purple, and red circle around him and cause him to go into wild panics of hysteria.  His violent shaking was distracted only from the awful sound he made trying to scream, but losing the ability to do so.This once happened on a date, as a matter of fact.

Les was sitting across from a beautiful woman named Cathy Whitnall. Cathy’s hair was a beautiful, dark shade of black which passed just below her shoulders. Cathy’s her was personified by her bright green eyes that stared right through Les. Her independent attitude and wicked sense of humor shook Les to his very core. Les could not imagine a better setting. The sun shone high up in the sky and through the windows in Les Murphy's apartment, which made Cathy’s face glow. Les was at ease for once. He was enjoying simple conversation with a beautiful woman. Les couldn’t find a flaw in that. 

But then he had a feeling as if something in the back of his head was twitching. He had of course felt this before. It was the beginning of what was surely to be the last time Cathy Whitnall ever showed interest in Les Murphy again. Her face began to disappear in front of him as the mixture of red, black, and purple completely shrouded his vision. Les grabbed the tablecloth so hard his hand started to bleed. Then started the shaking. He convulsed violently back and forth, trying to scream but failing miserably, only being able to muster out a small whimper. Out of Les’s mouth came saliva and out of Les’s nose came mucus which ran down his face. He shook violently until he toppled over. Les finally gained the use of his vocal chords and let out a blood curdling scream that almost shook the glasses that sat in front of them. Cathy screamed and ran to the phone to call 911. Right at that moment, Les suddenly snapped out of his violent trance and grabbed her wrist.

"No," he said, "Please."

It was at that moment that Cathy Whitnall's face turned to his in utter terror. She had just witnessed what she thought was a man dying in front of her, and then the next second he was standing beside her, looking down at the floor as if he'd just pissed on the rug and was asking for forgiveness like a dog. 

"What the f**k!" she exclaimed, "Is this some kind of f*****g game?! Do you do this to everyone as if it's some kind of joke?!" 

Before he could answer her, she slapped him across the face, screamed some more profanities, grabbed her purse, and left the way she came. Les stood there embarrassed in his tiny apartment. He was going to tell her no one else on entire planet had seen what had just happened. He couldn't explain it. Les would go into awful convulsions of pure pain and agony, and then would snap out of it like he was untouched.

It began when he was a boy. The first attack started when he was playing out in his backyard by himself. Les toppled over on his toy trucks, began gasping for air, and seeing the three colors that would visit him periodically for the rest of his life. He was so scared by what had happened that he didn't tell his parents. Les had heard about what might happen to him if he did. They would send him to a hospital and doctors would poke him with sharp things and inject him with needles till he fell asleep, or see had thought. He thought the doctors would put him into big machines and they would look inside his brain, cut him open, and rip out pieces of him, or so he thought. So Les didn't tell his mom or dad, and thus begun the series of attacks that would plague Les Murphy throughout his life.

This was much the same. Les continued to convulse and throw his head back and forth, almost banging the back of it into his wall. The callouses on his fingers had opened and the tips were now just raw skin. Les was in so much pain, but couldn’t find the use of his voice to scream until his head stopped throbbing and everything turned black. Just as he was about to pass out, Les snapped out of it. He was no longer being tortured with the haunting images that circulated around him for what felt like hours. Les realized that this attack wasn’t the same as others. During the other ones, he could only see colors. There was never an instance where he made out actual figures and shapes. But in this one, it was as clear as day what he had seen. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Even though he wasn’t in a state of panic anymore, Les could feel the darkness still surrounding him. He looked around room. He couldn’t see more than an arm’s length away. The time was 3:51 AM. The sun would come up soon. Then he could see if what had haunted him was truly in this bedroom with him.

In an instant, Les pushed this idea away. He knew nothing was in the room with him. Les told himself he could turn on his lamp and see nothing but the dresser and the walls.  He knew he was by himself and everything had been a figment of his imagination. If only he would have known then how little his imagination had to do with it.

Les reached over to his nightstand and turned on his lamp. Beside him were pieces of blanket and sheet torn apart and thrown across his full sized bed. He sighed, ran his fingers through his long blonde hair, cringed at how painful it was to do that, and then got up to clean up the mess he had made. Les walked out of his room trying not to stumble as his mind continued to spin, which made him want to fall through the doorway onto the hallway floor and never get up. Just stay there and whither away. The eeriness in his thoughts continued to grow. But Les had become fessed up with this, put the evil thoughts at bay, and walked into his bathroom.

Inside, he examined his fingers. They were covered in blisters and torn up from clenching his fists and tearing about his bed. He washed them clean and hoped he could suffer through this week’s class and not start bleeding all over the instruments when he tried to teach. Les could imagine nothing scarier than seeing your teacher abruptly start bleeding from his hands all over himself and screaming in pain.

Les Murphy's long blonde hair was matted down in the back and sticking up in the front. His hair was long and thick around his whole head. He often ran his fingers through it when he was stressed, or because he was just proud of it. He had always suffered from nasty bed head, even as a kid. He stood at 6"2 and weighed a solid 220 lbs. You wouldn't believe it if you looked at him, but he had never touched a football competitively in his life. His blue eyes were subtle yet astoundingly pretty. And since he was still at the young age of 25, his skin was flawless and impeccable.

He often had thoughts that made him uneasy and, just like he was going to do with this one, he would block it out. He had to block it out. He was a teacher, for Christ's sake. Les needed to keep his composure if he were to remain credible and respected. The only problem with this is that in the coming months, everything would be in such total disarray that it wouldn't matter what the kids thought of Mr. Murphy and his wise cracking sense of humor. Soon, the town would be blanketed in a feeling of evil. After all, it had already begun.