Pipeline by Christopher Carrolli Page B

TV.
    “Who are you, and where is David? Speak to
me. I can help you,” Sidney’s voice boomed with the intensity of a
proud and pious preacher from the pulpit. He opened his eyes and
listened, awaiting the voice from beyond, but the sound of
something else stirred. It was a soft rumble that grew louder, a
rolling ball of thunder gathering strength and gaining magnitude.
Then, it happened.
    A brilliant flash of white struck
simultaneously with the calamitous sound of thunder. The bursting
of some unseen energy exploded like a bomb throughout the room,
sending objects flying, lamps and vases breaking, tripods tumbling,
and those present cowered in the corners away from the TV. A great
gale of icy wind swept the house.
    Sidney was knocked back a few feet but
quickly turned, catching his breath and facing the unknown nemesis.
A crack split the left lens of his now broken glasses, but the TV
screen remained intact, the unwavering static taunting him.
    “Now I’m pissed,” he said. A wash of sweat
dampened his wavy, brown hair as he seethed. “Who are you, and
where is David?”
    The loud moaning continued, bellowing an
urgent SOS that sought pardon from the shadowy confines of death,
attempting to usurp the static that grew louder with the rising TV
volume. Both noises became unbearable, and all plugged their ears
except an irate Sidney, who stood firm and commanding.
    The sounds died away to a strange humming,
and the mysterious gust of wind had passed, leaving behind the icy
chill that still pervaded the room. The lights continued to
flicker, some of which had been off all along.
    Dylan and Brett scurried to retrieve the
toppled tripods, righting them and examining them for possible
damage. Leah held on to Tracy, and Susan sat with her fingernails
clawing into the arms of Tracy’s loveseat.
    Sidney was panting when he called out
again.
    “David, are you there?!”
    Nothing but the strange humming
responded.
    Suddenly, Leah’s eyes widened and stared
straight at the center of the vast living room. An all too familiar
fear gripped her, an almost friendly foe on a revisited playground.
In her mind’s eye, the aura of her present surroundings was
changing, switching like stage lights from red, to green, to blue,
to a gray uncertainty.
    “Sit down,” she said, gently pushing Tracy
back down to the couch. She strutted and stepped forward, a sudden
lioness about to battle. “Sidney, move away from the screen...now!
There’s someone standing right in front of you.”
    His face displayed the look of someone held
at gunpoint, so Sidney did as he was told, stepping back behind the
seer who assumed control. She stood solid, her blue eyes unblinking
in focused fixation at a specter standing tall before her. It would
be only her eyes in this instant that would glimpse the unknown
ghost of a man that surely wasn’t David, and was in fact, the
culprit of the interrupting calamity. The seer and the spirit faced
each other with eyes recognizing from worlds cosmically apart.
    “Leah, what do you see?” Dylan asked in a
slow and cautious tone, careful not to obstruct the vision that
consumed her.
    She described the lurking menace in detail,
as he stood in towering height with penetrating eyes as black as
midnight, the kind that gazed deep into one’s soul. His dark hair
was slicked back, and she could see the insidious grin stamped upon
the face of what should have been a lifeless form, but instead, a
vital, ageless phantom thrived and loomed large in height, a master
manipulating multiple realms.
    “There’s a man standing there,” she said.
“It’s not David.”
    “Do you recognize him?” Sidney said, standing
behind her.
    “No, but he is who—or what, interrupted. He’s
just staring at me with this expression like he’s in absolute
control, dominating everything. His eyes are black, so black there
are no pupils.”
    The reddish aura that surrounded the specter
began to change, becoming brighter and stronger in