Peripheral Vision: A Supernatural Thriller(37)

“Nick you’re scaring me. If you know something you have to tell me.”

“You’re not wrong when you said you’re cursed.”

“What?”

“Your whole family is cursed, Sarah.”

“What do you mean!?”

“Some of it’s just stories, but a lot of it is true. Young deaths… tragedies... everyone around here knows the stories. It’s local legend. People just try not to talk about it anymore, but to Elizabeth it was gospel. And I know the sermon.”

“Tell me.” Sarah said.

“Shortly before the Civil War, there was a bloody massacre in this valley. Over 100 dead. There was one man that managed to survive. Jonathan Bayard. Elizabeth’s great, great, great grandfather. He lived just long enough to make it home and tell his son what he had seen. How the men had been fighting and then how something changed and they began to attack one another like animals. No sides, no allegiances, everyman for himself, and how the Iktomi river ran red with their blood…”

It didn’t take long for the vision to start this time. All she had to do was close her eyes and listen to Nick’s voice trailing off and soon enough Sarah found herself once again standing barefoot in the waving plains grass of Nebraska. She looked up and saw a wounded Jonathan Bayard-yes, that was his name-crossing the green sandhills on the back of his horse. Her great, great, great, great grandfather, she thought, or is that one too many greats? Who could be sure anymore. She looked over her shoulder and saw the twisting Iktomi River. It was bright red with blood. Then the vision flipped, like her visions and dreams always do, to a dying Jonathan Bayard laying in bed with his son sitting nearby. Jonathan was desperately trying to tell his son the story before his life escaped him. Sarah hated the heavy feeling in that room. It was dark and harrowing, and made it hard to breathe. But there was something else too, wasn’t there? She could feel the presence of something else, something in the blurred edges, in the dark corners, and it wasn’t friendly.

Jonathan lifted his head from the sweat stained pillow and desperately continued telling his story. He just needed his son to know...

“and that's when the gutless ran towards the Iktomi, and the damned Indians followed. August Arrow was like a mad man, throwing soldiers from their horses and slashing their necks all in one stroke. The death screams were everywhere, James! Everywhere, they're still ringing in my blasted ears, son. In my ears...I couldn't move then, my leg was shot to shit and I was wedged between two stinkin’ dead horses, but I could still use my eyes and my ears and I saw the Lieutenant lead his soldiers into the river. It was a struggle to see, mind you, but one eye could make out everything and that's all the Good Lord wanted me to see with...so as I could still come back and tell my story here to you today, son.

I could tell the horses were struggling with the river's current, but it was almost more than that. They were spooked and not just from the battle neither. I saw a number of them horses rear up, throw their rider and shoot outta the water and up the bank like they were trying to put space between themselves and that Iktomi. It was incredible I tell ya. I think those stupid animals knew what was coming next, they could sense it, cause shortly after is when the lines blurred to grey. I remember....it was like the air became too thin. Too thin to breathe. Too thin to think. But I could still see outa my one good eye, mind you, and that's when the men turned. Sounds crazy, but they all turned on each other! There were no more sides, no more soldiers, no more warriors...only animals...every man for himself, crazy animals.

Blood stained the air and dyed the Iktomi red, I tell ya. At first, I was trying to claw myself free of my dead stinkin’ bovine prison cell, but when the grey happened, I tried to crawl the other way, you see. Tried to get away from their awful, God-forsaken blood screams. I couldn't turn that one eye away though, as much as I wanted to, I just couldn't do it. So I watched. I watched the hacking, and cutting, and clawing, and biting...yes biting, and screaming. I'll never forget the screaming. At last, a silence fell over the valley again, and I prayed. Yes I prayed to the good lord Jesus, that he'd help me get away from all a this, and I'd be good again. I'd go a prayin’ and offering to God and everything, and stop the cussin’ and the drinkin’ and all that. I'd be good, James, you hear me? I'd be good.

But that's when I seen someone moving outta the water and onto the bank. He was all ripped to shreds, but I could still make out who it was...Lt. Wilmington himself. He crawled on hands and knees up the river bank, his face a crimson mask, but his officer's hat still somehow upon his head, and then he slowly stood to look back out at the river. It seemed like an eternity that he stared out at the red running Iktomi. Stared at the bodies, at the men, his men, and the men he had brought justice to.

My one eye strained, as I watched the Lieutenant move his right hand down towards his holster. In the next instant he had pulled his pistol and kissed his temple with the end of the barrel. The shot rang out and echoed through the silence that had engulfed the valley for the last few minutes. His body crumpled to the ground and that was that, I remember thinking. No one but me. I can't explain it, but that thought made me want to scream. After everything I had just witnessed, that was what horrified me the most. Being the only one. Being the last....all by myself. I remember just holding my breath and listening and listening. My one free eye darting from left to right, and scanning the valley.