The Eyes of John Abbott

Crouched in the shadow of a lilac bush, his eyes scanned the back of the house. Her light’s still on. Good. I hope he’s there, too. I’ll send them both to hell.

***

She named it Big Sister. The new wireless surveillance system was state of the art and seemed to be working perfectly. Tap, the front walkway and porch, tap, the driveway, tap, the back yard. Jennifer Dains used the iPad to move effortlessly from one location to another, and for the first time in months, felt her anxiety needle falling slowly into the normal range. Her daughter, ten-year old Angie sat at the kitchen table gesturing with her small, thin hands, talking excitedly to a friend on her phone.

            “Hey, Ang,” called Jennifer. “Come take a look at this.”

            Angie’s blue eyes rolled. “I’m talking to Liz.”

            “It’ll just take a second.” The girl reluctantly cut her conversation short and walked to her mother who was leaning against a counter. “See? Here’s the front of the house, the back, the driveway…cool, huh?”

            “It’s Friday night, can Liz stay over? Please?”

            “Just tell me Big Sister is cool.”

            “It’s cool, in a creepy way. Just don’t put one in my room.” Jennifer gave her daughter a blank stare. “Mom.”

            “I’m just kidding. This is for seeing outside, not in. Yes, Liz can stay over.”

“Thanks.”

            Angie rushed upstairs yipping excitedly into her phone, while Jennifer set down her new toy and began poking through the refrigerator for dinner ideas. The thirty-year old recent divorcee had only reluctantly signed up for the security system. Shortly after her ex-husband moved out several months ago, the strangeness began. She could never bring herself to believe that the man she’d lived with for eleven years would be vindictive, and he vehemently denied any part of it, but she couldn’t ignore the coincidence. The Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland had been their home for five years and they never had any trouble with anyone, but once Dennis moved out, a creepy vibe set in. She found a dead robin on the front welcome mat. Someone put red handprints on the sliding glass door leading to the backyard. One afternoon she checked the mail and found what looked like a bloody doll’s dress in with the letters. The athletic and attractive Jennifer, a marathoner, a regular at the gym and unapologetic atheist, was not frightened by the supernatural aspects of the occult symbols turning up around her house, but she wasn’t going to take any chances, either. The Bay Area had more than its share of seriously disturbed people.

            It was a cool, misty May evening and comforting giggles from Angie’s room drifted down the hallway. Jennifer, propped up in bed with her laptop, smiled as she worked on the financials for the consignment shop she ran just north on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Downstairs was a mountain of clothes she needed to sort and price before Monday. A humming dryer in the laundry room provided comforting white noise. Then the doorbell rang.

            Jennifer set aside her computer and padded barefoot down the stairs. She peered through the peephole, but didn’t see anyone, which made her a bit suspicious. Leaving the chain latched, she cracked open the door. A small cardboard box about the size of a Rubik’s cube rested on the porch. Although her first instinct was to pick it up and open it, why not check out the security footage, she thought. Five minutes and three taps later she was fast-forwarding through the last hour of camera 1 footage. As the timer ticked toward the moment she heard the doorbell, a hooded figure suddenly appeared in the frame and set the box down. He then pushed the doorbell and ran. Based on size and motions, it looked like a man in a black hoodie, but he kept his head lowered so she couldn’t see the face. She replayed it several times then used the slow motion feature. There were no logos or markings on the clothing, nothing that could be used to identify the shadowy figure. Hating to feel like the helpless damsel in distress, she finally relented and called the Oakland Police Department.

            After explaining to the two only mildly interested patrolmen the reasons for her concern, the lanky cop, obviously not taking Jennifer’s concern about explosives seriously, picked up the box and, using a small penknife, opened it up. The officer’s wide-eyed expression indicated there was something unusual inside. He handed the box to his partner, and Jennifer looked over his shoulder. Resting on a bed of blood stained cotton was an eyeball that had been not too carefully removed from its socket. Jennifer put a hand to her mouth as the perplexed officer continued examining the organ.

            “Could be…a human eye, but it could be from an animal.”

            “That’s twisted. We’ll take it downtown and have it checked out.”

The officer holding the box turned to Jennifer. “Ma’am, I’m officially freaked out. Do you know why anyone would do this?”

            “No. I have no idea.”

“Have you had any issues with neighbor’s, arguments, problems with pets?”

“No. There’s no one I know in this neighborhood who would do something this sick.”

“Obviously no return address. How about kids in the area who might think this was funny?”

“No,” she snapped, her agitation growing. “Sorry. Like I said, there have been some other strange things that have happened to me over the past few months, but I don’t have a clue who would do this.”

“Okay. Is your husband…?”

“I’m divorced.”

“And…?

“No. No. I’ve ruled him out. He has…issues, believe me, but nothing like this. He’s not a violent person. Hold on, let me show you something.”

The officer’s fidgeted nervously on the porch. iPad in hand, Jennifer came out of the house and pulled up the video of the box. She replayed it several times at the officer’s request. The men wore bemused expressions as the scene played out again and again.

“Not much here,” said the beefier cop, wiping his sweaty face with a hand. “Can’t even tell if he’s black or white.”

“Weird,” agreed the other officer. “No offense, but my guess is teenagers playing some kind of strange game. Without having a clear motive, what other explanation is there?”

Jennifer turned off the device and looked back into the house, hoping there wasn’t one. The officers left with the eye and Jennifer was left with a knot in her stomach. Who would leave a box with a human organ in it on her porch? And why? That one seemed easier to answer. Someone was trying to scare her and doing a pretty decent job of it.

She stopped in the upper hallway and opened Angie’s bedroom door.

“Mom.”

“Sorry, just saying goodnight, and I love you.”

“We saw a police car out my window.”

“It was nothing important.”

“Oh, sure. Goodnight,” huffed Angie.

Saturday morning; sleeping late, coffee in bed, pancakes for the girls. It was a vibrant, sunny day and Angie and Liz took off on their skateboards around eleven. Jennifer turned on the radio in the living room and began digging into the pile of clothes and humming along to a familiar song from the Police. She marked prices on some and tossed others into yet another pile for Goodwill. The work was tedious but necessary. The day drifted by and Angie and Liz returned later talking over each other and running past Jennifer without a glance on their way to the kitchen. By the time Jennifer came in to help, Gatorade had been sloppily poured and protein bars were being consumed.

“Where’d you girls go?” asked Jennifer.

“Safeway. We saw Kyle and his little sister. Liz has a big time crush on Kyle.”

“I do not,” insisted Liz. “You do.”

“Do not.”

“Okay,” interceded Jennifer. “Glasses in the sink, wrappers in the garbage.”

Liz wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “We saw some guy in your yard, Mrs. Dains.”

“What?”

“He was standing over by those tall bushes next to the driveway,” added Angie. “When he saw us he walked away.”

“Did you see what he looked like?” asked Jennifer.

“No. He was wearing a hoodie.”

“He did have a creepy vibe.”

“Very creepy.”

Jennifer turned from the girls to the kitchen window, working to control her breathing and not show fear in the face of this disturbing news. She was clearly being stalked.  

“Hey, girls. Let’s stay inside the rest of the day. Okay?”

“Can we play video games?” asked Angie, jumping on the opportunity to do something that her mother would not normally agree to on a beautiful day.

“Yes. Sure.”

The girls bolted from the table and ran up the stairs giggling. Jennifer tried to distract herself by pricing clothes, but the accumulation of odd events now buzzed around her like an incessant gnat. For the first time in years, her Aunt Clio’s name seeped into her internal conversation, the pot smoking, tattooed hippie and youngest sister on her mother’s side who lived with her artist girlfriend in a cabin in the Sierra foothills. She was reluctant to draw anyone else into this, especially family, but there was really no one else to turn to. As a teenager, she recalled the word “occult” popping up a few times in conversations about Clio, and perhaps she could help shed light on the symbolism of the eye and pentagram and dead animal.

Not only was Aunt Clio interested in talking about her niece’s predicament, she insisted on driving down that day from Sonora. Several hours later a car pulled up in front of the house, and Jennifer greeted her aunt on the porch with a relieved embrace. It had been two years since they’d seen each other, and the creases in Clio’s face had grown deeper, but the youthful spirit she was known for still manifested itself in her short, spiked hair, patchwork peasant dress and well-worn Birkenstock’s. After a half-hour of small talk and a tour of the house, the two women settled down in the living room with glasses of wine.

“I can’t believe Angie has grown so much,” remarked Clio in her rusty, smoke-ravaged voice.

“It’s been two years and that’s way too long to go without seeing each other.”

“Agreed,” said Clio, peering curiously over the lip of her wine glass at Jennifer. “I think, however, that there’s more to this welcome reunion than a desire to reminisce.”

Jennifer ran through the litany of the odd events of the past few months with Clio nodding knowingly and shaking her head in disbelief in equal measures. When Jennifer finished, Clio took off her glasses and pinched the space between her eyes as if physically trying to contain what she just heard. Leaning to one side on an elbow, she met Jennifer’s expectant glance. “I believe you are under attack from a demonic presence.”

The earth paused in its orbit for a moment, rivers reversed course, and Jennifer tried to maintain decorum, but could not. A messy, blustery laugh escaped despite her best efforts. She covered her mouth to try and contain the damage, but it was too late. Clio’s lips pursed and her body language became defensive.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, but demons?”

“You asked.”

“About the symbols. What they mean.”

“Bloody handprints, the all-seeing eye, the sacrificial animal, a dark man hanging around…they clearly point to the presence of an evil entity.”

“But Aunt Clio, I don’t believe in that stuff. There’s nothing that I’ve told you about that couldn’t be done by a human being. I mean, this hooded person has been seen on the property twice now. I don’t know why, but he’s trying to scare me.”

“Are you absolutely sure that’s all it is?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound dismissive.”

Clio looked down at her lap with a knowing smile. “The wine is nice. Could I get a little more?”

The subject changed, wine glasses were kept full, and Clio stayed another hour trading family stories and dishing on relatives, but Jennifer knew she’d been rude and wanted to set things right before her favorite aunt left.

“I want you to know that I’m sorry about before. As my ex would readily attest, I can come across as an annoying know-it-all. Please forgive me.”

Clio shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, dear. You’re probably right and it’s just some loony tune getting his kicks at your expense. I swear, what people call fun these days. Whether it’s supernatural or not, promise me you’ll be careful and alert and you’ll call the police if this guy shows up again. I’ll come back anytime you need me.”

“I promise.”

The two women hugged and Jennifer walked Clio to her car.

As Jennifer carried glasses back to the kitchen, her phone rang. She was talked out, so she let it go into voicemail and checked it a few minutes later.

“Mrs. Dains, this is Sgt. Willits from the Oakland PD. I wanted to get back to you about the…eye found on your porch. According to our forensic pathologist, it is a human eye. We will be taking a DNA sample and comparing it with our database of the recently deceased, but I would say it’s very unlikely we will be able to locate the victim. Just as a precaution, we will have cruisers make some extra passes through your neighborhood the next several nights.”

Jennifer sat down at the kitchen table as a dull headache set in. A human eye? Some sick bastard had the time and inclination to commit this atrocity and then wrap up it in a box and put it on my doorstep. Who hates me that much?

There was a crash just above her. Jennifer bolted up the stairs and met a frightened Angie in the hallway.

“Are you okay?” She asked, kneeling down and holding her daughter’s arms.

“What was that?” asked Angie.

“I don’t know. Was it in your room?” The frightened girl shook her head ‘no.’ Jennifer took Angie’s hand. “Come on.”

They found the source of the noise quickly. A framed photo of a Dains’ family reunion picnic from several years ago had fallen from its hook, glass shattering across Jennifer’s bedroom floor. After ushering Angie out, Jennifer swept up the mess, refusing to read anything into the mishap, even after noticing a hole had been poked through the photo where her face was.

Later that day, as she tried to focus on updates to her store’s website at the kitchen table, her phone rang.

 “Jennifer. It’s Clio.”

“Hey. Everything okay?” she asked, alert to the seriousness in her aunt’s voice.

“I hope you don’t think I’m meddling…well, I am meddling, but I’m only trying to help. I did some online research on your house.”

“My house? Why?”

“I know you don’t buy it, I get that, but I believe that sometimes spirits, good and bad, linger in places where a traumatic incident took place. Your house definitely fits the bill. According to news articles from the Tribune, in 1990 a man named John Abbott broke into the house and attacked the woman who lived there, who was his ex-girlfriend. After a struggle, the woman managed to push Abbott down the stairs. He didn’t die, but he lost his sight as a result of a head trauma. He died two years later at Napa State Hospital, which is where they keep the criminally insane.”

“Wow. That’s an interesting and unsettling bit of history, but—“

“What does it have to do with me? I can’t say, but there could be a connection between your weird events and this.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes, but kept her tone even. “I appreciate it, Aunt Clio.”

“You think I’m a few cards short of a deck, but things happen in this world that we can’t explain. Maybe someday science will have the answers, but now, they are beyond our understanding. Please be careful, Jennifer, and keep your precious daughter safe.”

“Thank you. I will be extra cautious.”

“Good. And call me if anything else turns up.”

“Promise. Bye.”

She set down her phone and wondered how one family could breed such divergent children. Jennifer’s mother had been a scientist, a no-nonsense realist who brought up her children to be clear-headed rationalists. Then there’s her sister, a hippie New Ager who dabbles in the occult and grows her own pot. She had certainly turned out more like her mother, but she wanted to think there was something of her aunt mixed in as well.

            Angie came bounding down the stairs and was soon standing hopefully with her hands resting on Jennifer’s knees.

            “Can I sleep over at Liz’s tonight? Please, please, please?”

            “Has she asked her mom?”

            “Yes.”

            A night away from this craziness might be a good idea, she thought. “Okay. I’ll take you over there about five.”

            “Yay.” Angie kissed her mother’s cheek and danced out of the kitchen.

            Without Angie in residence, the house was quiet and lonely that night. The dark windows surrounding her made her feel as if she was on stage, exposed to an unseen audience, so she turned off a number of lights. With a plate of salad in one hand and a glass of chardonnay in the other, she walked to the living room for a distracting evening of cooking shows. Around ten, routine set in and she retested the locks and trudged upstairs. As she’d done several times that day, Jennifer checked the surveillance cameras and, finding a black cat to be the only source of movement in the vicinity, got ready for bed.

            A deep, resonant thud from downstairs jolted Jennifer awake. Blinking, blurry, her first instinct was to call out for Angie, but she stopped herself, remembering her daughter was at Liz’s for the night. Outside? Inside? Things were fuzzy until she heard a skritching sound, like a chair being moved on the hardwood floor downstairs. Jennifer grabbed her iPad and quickly tapped up the camera views, but there was nothing to see, which was troubling because it meant someone had gotten in the house without setting off any alarms. Slipping on flip flops and a robe, she made her way silently to the threshold of the bedroom door. Her heart fluttered wildly like a butterfly caught in a jar as she poked her head out and looked up and down the hallway. It was still and dark, but then a shadow moved across the wall by the staircase. She backed into the bedroom and covered her mouth with both hands to stop from screaming. What the fuck happened to the security system, she angrily asked herself? A floorboard squeaked downstairs. Jennifer froze for a moment, torn between going to her phone to call 911 or running to Angie’s room and grabbing the baseball bat leaning in a corner. Another critch, this one sounding closer, like a step on the stairway. In panic mode, she made sure the hallway was clear, then tiptoed next door and felt around for the bat in the dark, kicking an X-Box controller across the floor in the process. Shaking with fear, she stopped and it sounded like the intruder stopped as well. Knowing she had to act, she reached out, picked up the bat and then crept back to the wall next to the door, adopting a batter’s stance.

            Her knees trembling, she strained to follow the footsteps as they methodically made their way down the hall only to stop at her bedroom door. She couldn’t see what was happening, but she imagined a flashlight beam scanning the room looking for her. He would be confused that she wasn’t in her bed, but would assume she’d gone to the bathroom. The footsteps started again, and the soft padding of his shoes grew clearer as he drew closer. Muscles clinched. Palms were damp. She needed to wait for him to step into the room. A shadow came into view and moved slowly across the threshold. Click; a thin flashlight beam crisscrossed the room looking for signs of life. He wasn’t going to risk coming in. She had to act now. Pivoting on her left foot, she swung around and squared up against the dark mass of a man filling the doorway. Before the man could react, the bat came down with a sharp snap of aluminum on bone, and the intruder stumbled backwards, falling against the opposite wall and then crumpling to the floor. Through teary, terrified eyes she could see he was a twenty something man with an acne-scarred complexion and dark, slicked back hair. He could be mistaken for someone passed out drunk, except for the trickle of blood tracing its way down his forehead.

            Jennifer kept her back against the wall and shuffled carefully around the body. Once clear, she ran to her phone on the bedside table. Her hands were shaking and it was difficult to find the screen she needed. A dark shadow suddenly grew large on the bedroom wall, and before she could completely turn around the crazed man had wrapped his arms around her and was pushing her down on the bed. He was using his bulk to try and bury her face in the mattress, but she was stronger than he expected and she kicked and struggled fiercely. When he leaned in, she snapped her head back and caught the man’s chin, sending him reeling backwards into her dresser. Jennifer rolled away and fell onto the floor at the foot of the bed with a thud. Gasping for air, she clawed at the wood until she found the bat lying next to her, grabbed it and struggled to stand. As she rose to her feet, the injured, dazed man threw himself forward onto the bed and clutched at the hem of her bathrobe. He grabbed at the air, crawling across her bed like a giant lizard. She screamed, swinging the bat over her head and then down on the man’s flailing arm. He reacted with a wail of pain that didn’t sound human. Knowing she had one last chance, Jennifer brought the bat down on the man’s head with the last bit of strength she had. The sickening crack reverberated through the house like a hammer hitting a rock, and the man, his broken head oozing glistening black blood, finally lay motionless. Jennifer threw the bat to the ground and hobbled down the stairs sobbing and sucking in air.

            Blue and red lights chased each other around the neighborhood from the top of police cruisers, fire trucks and an ambulance as officers and paramedics passed each other going in and out of the small West Oakland bungalow. Jennifer, bloody, dazed and wrapped in a blanket, knees tucked up under her chin, sat in a chair on her porch trying to answer the questions of a female police officer.

            “You’d never seen this man before?”

            “No.”

            “Did he say anything to you? Why he broke into your house?”

            “No. He didn’t say anything. He just tried to kill me. Can I make a phone call?”

            “Sure,” said the officer, putting away her pad and pen.

            Hands still shaking, Jennifer managed to find a number and put the phone to her ear. “Aunt Clio? It’s Jen.”

             A warm breeze sent curtains fluttering. Yellow sunlight filtered into Jennifer’s bedroom as her eyes fluttered open and tried to focus on the clock next to her bed. Realizing it was 2:15 p.m. she got up on an elbow in a panic. Two-fifteen in the afternoon? She threw on her robe hobbled downstairs and into the kitchen where Clio was putting away clean dishes.

            “Good morning,” sang Clio.

            “Good morning? It’s after two in the afternoon. Where’s Angie?”

            “Riding her skateboard out front with Liz.”

            “I have to get down to the store…”

            “You have to sit down, have some coffee and relax. You’re not going anywhere today. Hear me?”

           The events of last night suddenly materialized like a rogue wave overtaking her and she felt dizzy. Clio helped her into a chair at the table.

            “It’s going to be okay, Jen. You just have to take it easy for a couple of days. I’ll be here to help.” Clio set a cup of coffee in front of her still dazed niece. “There. Now, eggs or pancakes?”

            After another 24 hours, Jennifer’s face regained color and she was able to smile again. Still physically bruised and stiff, her mood was improving. Clio hustled around house waiting on Angie and doing her best to make Jennifer comfortable, and in between she cleaned blood off of the upstairs walls and floors. The sounds of skateboard wheels on asphalt and the silly yet comforting banter between Angie and Liz drifted in an open kitchen window as Jennifer made a glass of ice tea. There was a brief moment of satisfying balance, and then her phone rang. Although Clio had admonished her for answering an earlier call, she couldn’t help herself.

            “Hello?”

            “Mrs. Dains, this is Sergeant Jill Evans from the Oakland PD. I was one of the responders the other night. How are you feeling?”

“Sore, and I’ve got some ugly bruises, but I’m doing better. Thanks for asking.”

“Good. Well, there are two things I wanted to share with you. First, we reviewed your security video data and couldn’t find any footage showing your attacker. You might want to have someone take a look at your system because it doesn’t seem to be functioning properly.”

For some reason this didn’t come as a surprise. “Okay.”

“You probably don’t remember, but at one point you asked me to promise to let you know the identity of your attacker.”

            “You’re right. I don’t remember that, but go on.”

            “His name was Carl Silverman. That ring any bells for you?”

            “No, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

            “Well, we’re still investigating why, but he knew you. We searched his apartment yesterday and found dozens of photos of you and your daughter taken from long range, a map with your house marked on it, and a journal.

            “A journal?”

            “Yeah. There is a single sentence written over and over again filling every page from front to back. “

            An icy hand rested around Jennifer’s throat. “What is it?”

            “ ‘I am the eyes of John Abbott’.”

            The phone fell from Jennifer’s hand and clattered on the wood floor cracking the screen. Angie burst into the kitchen holding something cupped in her hands. “Look, Mom. I found a dead bird.”

            “Aunt Clio,” shouted Jennifer.

            “Yes, Dear,” came a reply from the living room.

            “Please go start your car.”