EYES OF THE NIGHT
“The eyes of the night are upon you.”
Stitched in bloodred letters on a piece of black linen, those words blaze like a fire in the deepest darkest part of the night. Surrounding those ominous words, eyes–many pairs of eyes stare out of that black fabric. Pupils the dark purple of a hideous bruise float in pale white bloodshot orbs. Thick black lashes only partly cover those eyes that seem to stare in all directions but still focus on you, the watcher.
It's origin lost to history, this small tapestry resides in a thin wooden box, at the back of the highest shelf in the attic closet of the old cabin in the woods. Though the tapestry has long faded from memory, the words emblazoned on it dwell at the top of the urban legend list of Jasper, Indiana–story still used to scare children into closing their eyes and going straight to sleep every night. Legend has it that those who do not close their eyes to sleep, who open them before morning, never wake up again. They have been found dead, faces twisted in expressions of pure terror.
Such scare tactics work well, until children reach that magic year of the double-digit birthday–age ten. It's an age promising adventures in a bigger world, an age of questions needing answers, curiosity overriding common sense and compelling youngsters to solve riddles and mysteries–including those they grew up with–often with tragic consequences.
Young Billy Thornton embodies all the curious, reckless traits of the average small town ten year old boy. The boundaries of childhood abolished, the world is now his playground. His bicycle takes him anywhere his imagination conjures up.
On this particular midsummer day a week before his eleventh birthday, the Bicycle Brigade, as Billy and his friends were known, meet in their club house, a derelict cabin in the woods behind Billy's house, after dinner with plenty of daylight left to them.
Bored, the boys munch on snack cakes amid stacks of comic books, half finished projects, and preteen treasures. The boys discuss boredom freely as their mothers were not around to find them something to do.
As the sun edges toward the horizon, Billy casually mentions being too old for the boogeyman. His friends agree but shrug it off. Every adult in town said that phrase at night and whether the boys believed it or not, closing their eyes to sleep was such an ingrained habit, they usually went right to sleep.
Billy declares he is no longer a little kid afraid of monsters in the dark and suggests they all stay awake that night and prove it was just a story, with pictures from the camera he got for Christmas. With all of them agreeing to the plan, seeing themselves as ghost hunters, they headed home.
Later that night, at 9pm, Christine Thornton cheerfully sent her son to bed, ignoring his nightly plea for five more minutes. Acting as normally as he can, Billy trudges upstairs and down the hall. His father, Thomas calls out a good night from his home office. Billy responds in kind.
He goes into his bedroom, closes the door, and changes into his pajamas…dark blue flannel with light blue airplanes because Billy wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Leaving the door open for his mother's nightly bed check, Billy climbs into bed and pulls the covers to his chin. His heart races as he pushes his camera under the covers and gets ready to chase down this last childhood fear.
Christine stops in the doorway, her hand lingering on the light switch. She smiles and says goodnight, reminding him in the nightly ritual that “the eyes of the night are upon you”.
Billy dutifully closes his eyes. He hears the snap of the light switch and then the click of the door latch seals him in for the night. Billy sucked in a breath and held it. Now! He snapped his eyes open.
After the darkness of his closed eyes, Billy's vision adjusted quickly in the bedroom. He darted a glance around the room, picking out the darker pieces of furniture, the lamp beside his bed. His gaze landed on the closet door. Air left his lungs in a short burst. His grip tightened on the camera and he slowly pulled it from under the covers. He didn't quite dare to sit up but fumbled around and removed the lens cap. He aimed the camera at the closet door standing open across the room.
Open? His throat closed as he stared at the gaping black maw of the open closet. That door had been closed mere seconds ago. His heart skipped a beat and then thundered in his ears. He cringed under the covers but kept his head above the blanket and his eyes wide open. He blinked and the door was closed.
Frowning, he looked around the room again. His gaze landed on the chair at his desk. A jacket draped the back of the chair. The very dim light distorted shadows and objects, tricking his mind's interpretation and he swallowed hard. For a second his mind saw a headless midget.
Headlights swept the room through the windows. Eyes burned red just above the back of the chair, staring at him malevolently. Billy gulped air and shot a panicked glance at the closet door. When he looked back, the chair was just a chair with a jacket over the back. He let out a ragged breath and aimed the camera at the closet door. He checked the viewfinder.
He looked up at the door and the breath caught in his throat. The door opened with agonizing slowness. Terror slithered up his spine, icy tendrils snaking through every nerve to his feet and hands. He tensed so rigid his legs burned. One hand curled into a fist around the edge of the blanket. The other hand gripped the camera so tight his knuckles ached. He forced his finger to the photo button and pressed hard.
The camera shutter clicked rapidly, loudly. Billy nearly jumped out of his skin.
A dim white glow oozed through the widening gap of the open door. Still pressing the shutter button, Billy yanked the covers to his chin, trembling violently. Sweat poured from his skin and rolled, stinging, into his eyes. He blinked. The door was wide open. A giant bloodshot, red-rimmed eye floated in inky blackness that could blot out the sun.
Billy froze, eyes wide. Terror bubbled in his blood. Ice wrapped his spine and oozed up to his heart. His pulse thundered in his ears. His throat ached and his lungs burned from holding his breath.
The eye moved in the air and hovered above him. It stared unblinking at Billy. He screamed but no sound emerged. He mashed his finger on the camera button. Goose bumps erupted on his skin. He shivered so violently his teeth shattered. Every instinct urged him to close his eyes.
“It's too late for that”, it whispered, the gasping sound oozing into his ears. “Far too late now.”
The huge eye brightened and expanded, pulsing with every beat of his heart. Billy kept snapping photos without thought. The eye exploded into hundreds of unblinking bloodshot eyes. Billy screamed and screamed without sound. The room spun. A tremendous suction yanked Billy off the bed. He stared down at his frozen body still snapping photos, open eyes staring at the closet.
“Now you are one with the night!”
Another wrenching sensation and the closet door slammed shut. A hundred pulsing watery eyes blinked out of sight, leaving a dark, silent room devoid of life.