The crowd began to disperse rapidly, fleeing from Jaimon’s approach like a shark darting through a school of small fish and parting before their attacker, hoping to escape being eaten alive.
Jaimon’s head bounced from side to side, wobbling like a spring carrying a heavy load and then he felt the controls of his body jolt back into his command, knocking him to his knees in the commotion.
By the time he’d raised himself to his feet again and steadied his tremulous frame, he glanced down and studied the decimated rag, still grasped firmly in his hand and recognised the remainder of Rositer’s black shirt. He scanned the deserted hill slope, grasping for understanding at what had just happened. Even the shirtless Rositer had made an emergency exit, leaving Jaimon alone with his traumatic musings.
“G’day, Bob.”
Jaimon spun to face the little redheaded girl, figuring she was at the centre of this latest, unbelievable situation. “What did you do, Salena? What just happened...?!”
“Calm down, Bob. The cavalry just came and kicked Rositer’s butt, that’s all.” Salena’s cloudy eyes bored into him.
“Look, this whole thing is frightening me. You had better explain exactly what is going on and especially that spooky thing last night,” Jaimon’s voice quavered and his hands shook with fear.
Salena sighed heavily. “Okay... but we had better wag the rest of today and let the gossip circulating around the school settle back down.”
“I..I can’t, Salena, my fath...”
“Yeah, yeah... Poppy wouldn’t be pleased! Haven’t you connected the dots yet, Jaimon? And trust me, you don’t want to be mingling with those losers down in the school grounds after your little display just now!”
Jaimon nervously kicked at the sand and then came to a decision, with a heavy sigh. “Alright, let’s go to the fallen tree just down the road and you had better come clean with me.”
*~*~*~*
Salena reached under the fallen tree and retrieved a packet of cigarettes and lit up, drawing a lungful of pungent poison and then exhaled, leaving a heavy blue cloud hanging in the air above Jaimon. Pointing the filtered end towards him, she offered him a drag of her cigarette. He shook his head, annoyed she hadn’t remembered his previous objections.
“Stop stalling, Salena, and tell me exactly what just happened.”
Salena nodded, perched on the tree trunk next to him, staring at the ground and hoping, for his sake, her star trainee would choose to travel the crossroad she was pointing him down.
“Okay, let’s back up first of all to yesterday. Mrs Myriate–the woman’s place we went to–is a professional guide and has been trained to channel people looking for a supernatural experience.”
Jaimon shifted uneasily and waited for the next instalment of Salena’s explanation, while Salena’s cloudy eyes watched Jaimon’s eyes dilate in fear.
“What we were doing is known as surfing. It’s when we approach a portal in the supernatural world, by emptying ourselves of all personal control of our minds and bodies. This is how we try to attract a player... it’s called a trance. A player is a supernatural being which has a certain personality and range of power we are looking for, to give us more power to gain what we want.”
“W..wait a minute. You mean all those weird faces I saw, were supernatural beings?”
“Yep, you’re starting to get the picture. If a player likes what he sees, he will climb through the portal we have opened and inhabit our spirit, giving us his attributes and power. It’s very much a case of what players are roaming the portals at the time of our communication and in some cases, it has been known for a Terrorclasto to climb through, but that is very rare.”
“Terrorclasto...?! What on earth is that?” Jaimon’s eyes were huge.
“Well...! Those dudes are like the almost top of the tree, but they are so bad tempered, mean and extremely powerful that they usually won’t do anything a surfer asks. Trust me, you don’t want to be near a portal when they are in the vicinity.”
Jaimon’s fear was making him squirm. Salena noticed and moved quickly to finish her explanation.
“The players have ranks: the lower ranks are the Whimpitclastos. They usually are the annoying little players that hang around like a fly, have little power and are more of annoyance to a surfer. These are the ones that enter into the bimbos you see surfing, hoping for maximum power to make themselves attractive to men; then there are the Bettitclastos. They have greater power and are the most commonly surfed players, but they have a mix of personalities. Some are charming and cooperative and some... just are not; next are the Intetterroclastos. These dudes are the most helpful when it comes to situations like you had this morning with Rositer. They are usually militant players, better than the Bettitclastos, but they soon hide in obscurity when a Terrorclasto is lurking nearby. It’s kind of a sign to close down the portal when the Intetterroclastos suddenly disappear. Lastly, the Reptoclastos are the top of the tree, but I wouldn’t worry about them. They aren’t interested in surfers or the portals unless there is something specific they see in a surfer. These dudes are the ones that take over countries and create havoc among the Chr... err, the enemy.”
Jaimon stared directly at the little redheaded girl. “I didn’t think that doing yoga was such a dangerous affair.”
Salena laughed at Jaimon’s ignorant assumption. “Huh...! Yoga is just a tag to cover the real intent of surfing. It is only one of thousands of portals used by surfers looking for a greater supernatural experience and if you are looking to engage the powerful dudes, you use a portal known to attract that kind of power. Terrorclastos swarm around Ouija board portals, tarot card reader portals, and any portal directed by a human medium. They love the uninformed and ignorant surfers that lay themselves open to their control. Usually these surfers are the ones that end up in mental hospitals or in jail after the Terrorclastos wreak havoc with their minds and bodies, causing them to commit all sorts of lewd and illegal acts, brutalising humanity.”
Salena’s eyes took on a faraway look as her explanations ran away with her imagination. She jumped when she realised Jaimon was staring at her.
“So, what you are saying, Salena, is that you can go looking for a certain power range and try and attract them into your spirit?”
“Yeah, but that is a bit of a naive approach. The more powerful dudes pack greater power, but they are also harder to control, from a surfer perspective. If a Terrorclasto enters your portal, they may or may not do what you want, but almost always they take control and the only way for them to escape your spirit is for them to destroy it.”
Jaimon’s eyes were big and round. “So once one of these things enters your portal, the only way to get rid of it is to die?!”
Salena squirmed and Jaimon noticed this was the part she didn’t like discussing. Her voice took on a harsh whisper as she searched for the words. “There are only two ways I know, to get rid of any player once they have entered your portal.”
Jaimon waited, straining to hear her words.
“One is for the portal–or the spirit–to die, and the second... is...” Salena hesitated, trying to force herself to verbalise her thoughts. “The... the name of the enemy has power to destroy the players in an instant, dispatching them forever from the portals and untangling a player from the surfer’s spirit,” Salena whispered with great fear, and then brightened, with a crooked smile. “Most surfers, having been cleaned of players by that name, don’t accept the conditions of that name and open themselves up to player retaliation. Seven players–usually Terrorclastos–invade the cleaned surfer and turn their lives into a painful graveyard!”
Jaimon’s fear was at boiling point, “What name...?! What enemy...?! I don’t understand, Salena,” realising, after this morning’s fiasco that he had inadvertently opened his portal to a player and Rositer had faced the player’s full ire.
She squirmed and tried to form the name with her mouth but it just wouldn’t come and after a long silence punctuated
by Salena’s contorted face, she managed to whimper, “The lover of the Christians and the author of their book.”
Jaimon felt an intense headache quickly developing and his mind seemed to be running from his thoughts, until he finally managed to spit the words out.
“You mean... Jesus Christ?”
He gawked in shocked horror at Salena’s contorting features. She screamed and pulled her hands over her ears and dropped to the ground, writhing.
“Don’t ever use that name!”
*~*~*~*
Chapter 32
The time seemed to drag, waiting for the final war siren to drift across the school grounds and reach the fallen tree hideout. Salena had become increasingly nervous since Jaimon had spoken the name of Jesus Christ and feigning sickness, she’d disappeared home, leaving him to his thoughts – alone. It seemed his mind had become increasingly foggy. Every time he tried to recall the morning’s tribulations and when he considered Salena’s reaction to the name of Jesus Christ, a stab of pain ran through his brain so sharply that he had to concentrate on something else.
A recalcitrant smirk edged its way across Jaimon’s features, remembering the expression of sheer terror on Dowden’s face and Rositer’s shirt he’d turned into rag with one unbelievable action. For some reason he felt powerful and for once, someone else was feeling petrified in his presence.
A forming thought interrupted his euphoria, realising he too was a spectator without any control of what was happening to his own body and the strange phenomenon around him. One thing seemed to disturb him greatly though: after the incident had passed, it appeared control was restored to his mind forcibly and his body wobbled uncontrollably as the power source seemed to take a back seat again. The experience had left him with many questions and now that Salena had made a hasty exit, the questions remained like a nagging force, gnawing at his insides.
What of all these terrible creatures Salena had described and the seeming innocent portals in which they were given access? It appeared that it was a voluntary thing to invite them into your spirit, simply by emptying your mind in a trance, as if you were laying down all hegemony and inviting them to take control instead.
Then her disturbing statement: The only way to get rid of a player was to die or that name… but for some reason, he couldn’t speak it again.
Then the faces of the women he had seen locked in the lotus position back at the Salena’s friend’s place came back to his mind. Their faces and bodies had appeared lifeless while enticing a waiting player to enter them. Jaimon uttered a frustrated sigh. If Salena’s description was accurate…
Did people really understand the dangerous games they were playing, surfing the portals?
He shivered.
Did he?!
The sound of the final war siren drifted across from the school, interrupting his thoughts and causing a pensive huff of relief. Jaimon paced the heavily vegetated area hiding his truant activity and decided to wait a further half hour before he made his move home, giving prying eyes a chance to dissipate.
The journey home was fraught with more confusing questions, all rallying for understanding. Jaimon had heard of people having superhuman strength when a loved one was trapped in a burning car, requiring a surge of power to free them, but once the situation had passed, the person was powerless to repeat the same circumstance.
Was this the same? Or was it something else?
He looked up and was surprised to see the driveway of his house already looming in front of him; the thoughts had kept him occupied and he hadn’t noticed the time slipping by.
A pang of guilt floated past and he wondered whether the school may have been in contact with his mother at his absence and if they had, he was in deep trouble. His father’s angry face loomed up before him and in his mind’s eye, an image of the strap guided by his father’s hand came down over his shoulders. Then from a prohibited place an angry, rasping voice vomited from deep within Jaimon and with clenched fists, he saw the strap wrenched from his father’s hand and his father’s form prostrate and unconscious before him.
The violent image shook him to his core as the anger subsided, leaving him shaking with a sick sense of shock instead, wondering where such powerful emotions had been given birth.
Swallowing back the dread, Jaimon stopped in mid step and tried to calm his fractured nerves and then continued towards his fate. He pushed the front door open, observing his mother’s reaction as he entered the house, waiting for the fireworks to begin.
She was scrubbing something in the sink and she peered at him and then up at the clock on the wall. “Goodness, is it that time already? I had better get a move on and get the dinner happening.” She left her task and began banging pots and pans in a frantic effort to start the evening meal.
“How was school today, Jaimon?” she called as he walked past and headed for his bedroom.
“Okay!” he nervously threw back, worrying a surprise attack was about to take place and when she continued on with her task, he felt confused.
Jaimon stared at the ceiling from his bed, suffering a growing headache. The pain was making his stomach feel queasy and nervous butterflies collided in his imagination, adding to the stress.
A sudden pounding on the door made him flinch and drew him out of his misery. “Tea’s on, runt, and Dad’s home; you had better get a move on if you know what’s good for you.”
Jaimon folded his legs over the bed and struggled to stand, feeling bilious and lightheaded. Another bout of pounding came at his door and it made him feel even more nauseous.
“Did you hear me, runt?!”
“I heard you already, blob!” he responded hotly.
The evening meal drifted into a normal family gathering where no one spoke and the solitary sound around the table was the clanking of cutlery on crockery. The television was the only one permitted to speak and occupied the place of pre-eminence, while the authoritarian figure shovelled forkloads of food into his mouth and glanced sideways at the moving images.
Jaimon’s headache continued to grow, expecting a storm at any moment, trapping him in his folly at his absence from school. As the meal gave way to the nightly dishes routine, Jaimon couldn’t understand the silence from his parents. Did they or didn’t they know he’d wagged the day off school?
He jumped when a voice disturbed him as he stood beside his sister, wiping wet dishes.
“Come on, runt, get a move on; there isn’t any more room for dishes.”
Out of nowhere, the angry, rasping voice bubbled up from deep within and spilled into his mind. ‘Get out of the way and let me smack her!’
“NO!” Jaimon’s voice echoed around the kitchen, drawing confused stares from all parts of the house.
*~*~*~*
Today was Friday. Physical education was his first two periods and Jaimon felt the usual dread creeping into his mind, and after yesterday’s episode with Rositer and Dowden, he felt even more on edge. He casually packed his P.E. clothes and then studied the towel, the device that had started all of his latest worries. With a quick swallow, he screwed the newly washed towel into a ball and thrust it into his bag, hoping the action would somehow protect him from a further escalation of hostilities.
In a flurry of nervous activity, Jaimon threw his school bag over his shoulder and burst out of the front door of the house, heading for school... he was late. He could hear someone calling after him, but for some reason he couldn’t stop and the voice disappeared into insignificance as the distance from the house increased.
Finally he arrived on top of the sandy hill overlooking the school property, searching around, hoping to find Salena and have some of his burning questions put to rest, but she was nowhere to be found. The hill appeared to be eerily quiet and devoid of students making their way into school, so he put on some speed, thinking it was later than he realised. Jaimon’s pace picked up as he heard the war siren warble across the school grounds, finally landing breathless into the boys?
?? change rooms.
As he frantically changed into his sports clothes, the other boys had already left for their activities and as Jaimon pulled on his shirt, a large final year student broke into the scene and stood over him.
“So, you’re the hero who gave Rositer a hiding, hey? You don’t look too threatening to me!”
Jaimon swallowed hard and tried to duck around him and find his sports teacher, but the big roadblock stood in his way. Jaimon could feel a stirring deep within him and then his eyes felt like fire.
“Please, just leave me alone.”
It was more of a warning than a plea.
The big student backed away, staring in fear and tripped over a bench, sprawling his big frame on the concrete floor as he tried to get away. Jaimon’s eyes cooled and he felt normal again, wondering why the big student had responded the way he did.
No one came near Jaimon as he changed back into his school uniform but he could hear the other boys pointing and whispering. This was worse than the ostracizing he’d felt before and his only ally, Salena, still seemed to be absent. Even if she had some strange friends and did some weird things, she was just like him: an odd ball trying to fit into an unforgiving society.
Jaimon strolled out into the quadrangle and mingled among the other students and as he walked into the crowd, the crowd opened before him like a shark diving into a mass of schooling herring.
Standing to one side, Monette Alarn watched him pass by. She was the most popular girl in school, with looks that could melt a teenage boy and as everyone knew, she was Rositer’s possession. Anyone caught even looking in her direction would meet with a swift reprisal.
Rushing past him she blocked his way, deliberately standing directly in front of him, tilting her head to one side and then smiled directly at him.
“Hi, Jaimon. How would you like to hang out with me?”