Chapter 1
Eric didn’t want to laugh at the crass joke that Malcolm just told, but the man did have a point. There would be some serious competition for number one salesman with the incentives the drug company was offering for each customer. Of course, technically, they should be called patients, but honesty was something Eric prided himself on and calling these people what they really were would be proper. Herbert Josslin was laughing so hard that he spit out most of his drink.
Eric was about to respond, maybe say something to Herb about his eating habits, when the chandelier in the room began to jingle. Most of the people didn’t seem to care about the noise, but Eric couldn’t hear too much of anything because of its ringing. He looked up at the light fixture, then back around at his comrades.
“Can no one else hear that?” He asked, feeling like he was yelling.
The others in the room began to whisper, while looking at Eric in a weird way. Some talking conspiratorially behind their hands, he was sure, about him. Eric turned back to the group that he was speaking with when a terrible voice said.
“The oath breakers must be punished for the severing of their oath.”
The words were so loud, so forceful, that the entire room began to shake, causing Eric to recognize the dream-like quality of everything. A dream that was quickly breaking down around him. The people in the room began to disappear, while pieces of furniture and other things began to dissolve.
“The oath breakers must be punished.”
The words boomed from everywhere waking everyone in the house. Eric, grateful to be out of the dream, stared ahead for a moment confused about whether the words were part of his dreams or real. It was almost as if he was being tortured for his willful deception of patients. He’d been feeling remorseful from being someone who sold the drug to his patients for profit. Now, that one of his patients had died from his suggestions, he was having the strangest dreams.
Sue, Eric’s wife, had a vice grip on his forearm.
“Did you hear that?” She whispered, then looked into Eric’s eyes before looking toward the door to their room.
The voice was deeper than anything they’d ever heard. The house seemed to be still vibrating from its timbre. Eric continued blinking, which informed Sue that he was out of it. A low humming sound emitted from somewhere in him and Sue was sure he didn’t know he was making the noise. She didn’t want to wake him because she was afraid of what that would do. She’d read that waking a sleepwalker could be dangerous.
“Eric?” She whispered.
He blinked a few more times before turning to look at Sue completely aware.
“What’s going on?” He asked, his voice groggy. “I just had a crazy ass dream.” He said after clearing his throat.
“Eric.” Sue hissed, elongating his name. “There’s someone in the house.”
She said imploring him with her eyes. Eric looked at his wife confused before turning his attention to the closed door. The footfall of someone coming up the stairs was all the evidence Eric needed to know that there was an intruder in their home. What made the situation worse is what the intruder began to recite while taking each step.
“I swear by Apollo, the physician and Aesculepius and Hygeia and panacea and all the gods and goddesses making them witness.”
The last word came out almost slurred causing goosebumps to form. Sue pulled the sheet, clumped loosely around her, up to her chest while Eric turned his head slowly to look at his wife. The terror on his face told Sue that he knew those words.
“What is it?”
Eric jumped from the bed, ran to the bedroom door and locked it.
“What is it, Eric?” Sue asked again, getting out of bed herself.
The intruder continued to recite the prayer as he accentuated his ascension. Like a giant, emphasizing, each period in the sentence was followed by a stomp that they both could feel.
“Eric!” Sue couldn’t help the way her voice sounded or the fear that she felt just staring at the closed bedroom door.
With the assistance of moonlight, the two of them watched as the darkness swirling underneath their door began to grow thicker. The shadows swirled like smoke, as if alive, it slid across the door from the crack underneath.
Eric saw this and jumped back away from the door. He moved quickly to the closet without turning on the light and began to rummage inside. The boom of the intruder’s footsteps was coming from the top of the stairs.
“If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, but if I transgress it and swear falsely may the opposite of this be my fate.” BOOM!
He was right outside the door. Eric could feel it and it made him work harder. Sue could feel it too, she knew it, but her body wouldn’t listen to her. Her mind was doing no better. Rationale told her to bolt, leave. Run to the neighbors and tell them what is happening. Maybe Mark would be able to help Eric subdue the intruder but some even more rational thought was coming up with good facts like, ’You’re on the second floor’ and ’You would run away and leave your husband to die?’
The last one was harsh and it felt like it was questioning her loyalty. The fact that these ideas were warring in her head was lost to her. Fear tends to push sense away like that.
The silence in the room became suddenly apparent. There was nothing coming from the other side of the door nor from Eric who continued to rummage in the closet. Sue was about to call out to Eric, when he came bursting out of the closet holding something big in both hands. Eric fumbled with the item for a second before he took a stance then pointed the gun at the door.
Hands shaking Eric took a few tentative steps forward. He pointed the weapon at the door.
“I’ve got a gun, whoever you are.” The cocking of said gun was loud in the quiet of the situation.
“The oath breakers must be punished.” The voice boomed from the other side.
The room shook as if going through an earthquake. Without another word, Eric shot the door several times, creating four large fist sized holes in the wood. As if invited, tendrils of thick black smoke, so thick it looked like oil, permeated the wood.
The smoke flowed into the room, in waves, like water. Dripping to the floor, instead of floating to the air, it rolled towards Eric. The smoke wrapped around Eric’s legs when it made contact with his flesh, it knocked Eric off his feet and dragged him toward the door. Sue turned her head away from the crunch that was sure to come when Eric’s body made contact with the door but the sound never came. She opened her eyes then turned back to see that she was alone in the room.
Eric’s body was nowhere in the room. She called out to him but got no response. Sue checked everywhere in the room before coming to a halt in front of the door.
“Eric.” She said as she slowly walked towards the holed wood.
The hairs on the back of her neck began to stand as she got closer to the door.
“The oath breakers must be punished.”
Boomed so loud that it caused her to clap her hands to her ears. A blue light began to emit from the holes in the door followed by Eric screaming something intelligible. Sue’s fear vanished, she ran to the door and peered through one of the holes that Eric made earlier with the gun.
Eric was being held by the scruff of his neck like a puppy, by a black man that had to be eight feet tall. The man was draped in a trench coat that couldn’t hold the sheer girth of his size. He was so big that he was barely visible through the hole in the door. Eric’s five-foot four body flailed futility before it was flung into a hole that became visible to Sue when Eric was thrown in.
Arms, limbs and appendages from things that were human and not, fought to tear the skin from Eric’s body. His carcass rolled through the multitude of appendages with pieces being torn away. The last thing Sue saw before turning away was Eric’s bones being taken by something barely visible at what appeared to be the bottom of the blue hole.
Sue couldn’t help but cry out at what she’d just seen, which caused the intruder to turn back toward their bedroom door.
“The oath breakers must be punished.”
An image of her and Eric on their wedding day appeared. Sue marveled at the youth visible in those happy faces. Slowly, the image changed to show her face speaking her vows. The happiness visible in that moment brought tears to her eyes.
“The oath breakers must be punished.”
This time the words were in her head. The image of her saying her vows shook until it changed to show something new. It was her in a room with her leggings being pulled down by Patrick, a friend from work. The image changed again, this time to show sue looking up at David, Eric’s partner in the practice.
Sue wished that she could close her eyes to the truth of her transgressions but the images were in her head. A whimper escaped her at the thought of what would happen next.
“The oath breakers must be punished.” The voice repeated in her head as the feelings of the smoke touching her bare skin caused her to shiver.
Her body was grabbed, toppled then dragged, just like Eric’s. “The oath keepers must be punished,” The intruder said as he flung her by one foot into the hole of appendages.
