Chamber of Blood. Harbinger of Hell. Evil Eyes. 1.
Haddie Kaur lifted her chai tea, let the steaming, spicy cardamom and cinnamon elixir sooth down her throat, and set down her stainless-steel cup in the small dhaba near her ancestral village of Mohi. The tea warmed her insides, yet she shivered cold with a nameless terror that mocked and poked at her like a formless apparition, reminding her that all wasn't what it seemed and that there were nameless things that went bump in the night.
Ever since Haddie could remember she had seen and heard things beyond the veil, and she even had vague recollections of the day her parents disappeared while they were vacationing when she was five years old. She remembered the whispers, the approaching darkness, and the sense that somehow they were in another reality. She didn't remember much about that time, but she remembered being taken in by her French-Canadian godparents, the Rois, who raised her with their son, Jordan.
Now Haddie and her older stepbrother Jordan were in India, filming episodes for their fairly successful web series 'Harbinger of Hell' with their uncle Stefan. A fan had sought them out after having watched one of their episodes about interdimensional overlaps which Haddie could sense, feel and even explore if her focus was right and she was able to 'tune in' as she so often described her process.
As their luck would have it this mysterious benefactor had funded an entire expedition all over the world, giving her brother and uncle access to countless remote and classified areas of known paranormal activity and unexplainable disappearances.
Haddie sipped her tea, listening to the villagers speak a language that reminded her of her disappeared father, and she suddenly heard a familiar voice and Quebecois accent that stood out from the rest calling out her name.
A moment later Stefan entered the dhaba with Jordan. “I found the site of the massacre,” Stefan said. “Finish your tea, and let's get outta here!”
Haddie sprang to her feet and followed her uncle and brother into the scorching hot day.
Chamber of Blood. Harbinger of Hell. Evil Eyes. 2.
“The thugs were ambushed in the valley near the ruins of the old signaling fort,” a turbaned man with a beard said. “I'm not sure what you hope to find here. Most stay away from this place like the plague.” He stared at the older teens as if they were mad. “You should have returned to the hotel like your uncle. Nothing here but the eyes, and they're probably watching us right now.”
Haddie and Jordan didn't answer or want to explain that their uncle didn't have the stomach for adventure, that he was more of a producer and that he was trying to finish off a horror novel he'd been working on for the last ten years. Ignoring the guide's nervous ramblings, Haddie studied the white stone bricks of the ruined fort and the surrounding caves with a strange feeling that they were being watched.
The guide said, “The official story is a unit of British soldiers died fighting a band of thugees.”
“And the unofficial story?” Haddie turned to him. The guide stared at her for a long moment. “The unofficial story is they turned their rifles and swords against each other. Something in these caves drove them mad.”
Haddie absorbed this and closed her eyes while Jordan filmed the ruins and the caves. Calming her heart and silencing her mind, she began to hear the rising screams and cries of people being butchered. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the scintillating orange residual memories of British soldiers cutting down thuggee rebels.
One thug seemed to be holding something important in his hands as he escaped the massacre. She walked through residual memories and approached the thug, starring at a piece of broken pillar in his hand. The thug desperately clambered over the rocks and rubble, charging into a nearby cave with the soldiers in hot pursuit.
Jordan stepped up behind her. “Did you see anything?”
Haddie nodded and pointed at the cave the thug had run into.
The guide raised his eyebrows. “And that's my cue to go,” he said, turning his back on the siblings. “Not that I think you're both crazy... which I do... but I need to get home before my wife realises I'm gone. It's my day to make rotis and pick up the kids from school.”
Haddie and Jordan watched the guide disappear down the rocky, sun-baked valley. Then they turned and approached the gaping mouth of the cave. For a long moment they stared into the darkness without saying a word. Jordan turned on the flashlight of his cell phone and just as they prepared to enter, they heard the crunch of stone behind them. Brother and sister turned slowly to face the barrel of a rifle.
Chamber of Blood. Harbinger of Hell. Evil Eyes. 3.
Three men speaking an ancient, unknown language forced Haddie and Jordan through the dark and seemingly endless cave with flickering flashlights to illuminate the way. Somehow these captors knew Haddie had a gift and were barking orders for her in broken English to lead them to the place where the thuggee rebel had hidden the relic. She didn't recognise her captors but it wasn't the first time someone had forced her to find something with her special abilities.
Haddie followed a trail of residual memories—memories and whispers only she could see and hear. She could sense they were walking through an 'overlap' of realities which heightened and reinforced her abilities in an inexplicable way. She followed the scintillating orange trail and froze when the residual soldiers suddenly disappeared. Then she started when the soldiers blinked back into existence and she heard desperate screams as something she couldn't make out attacked them.
“What is it?” one of her captors asked.
“She's seeing something,” Jordan said. “Let her do her thing.”
“This better not be a trick!”
Haddie watched the indiscernible creature rip the soldiers into an unrecognizable mess of flesh and gore. The creature then snatched the thug and dragged him screaming through a series of interconnecting tunnels. She chased after the fading memory, entering a small cavern as she watched the thug release the relic as the creature dragged him into a smaller tunnel that she imagined led to a feeding den.
Memories burned out like dying embers to reveal a cavern of human bones piled over thick rotting sludge. She winced at the stench of fermented organs and fluids and waved a cloud of flies away from her face. Near one pile of bones was a corpse, still warm, flayed from head to toe, eyes missing, mouth transfixed in an agonizing scream. The captors stared at the corpse for a long moment before one prodded Haddie with the barrel of his rifle.
“What the hell did this?” One of their captors murmured in disbelief.
“There must be a bend in reality here.” Another captor offered as an explanation. Haddie noted that what she called an 'overlap' these men called a 'bend.' It was clear that they had an understanding of other dimensions and that somehow this piece of column was more than just a relic.
“Where is it?” The leader prodded Haddie. “Where's the relic!”
Haddie took a moment, then pointed at a pile of bones. “But it could also be in there...” She motioned toward the tunnel that led to the feeding den.
“Check the bones,” one captor ordered the siblings.
Jordan and Haddie kneeled in the sticky sludge and rummaged through the bones as the leader turned toward the shadowy tunnel. He inched close to the opening and flashed a blade of light inside. While the other two captors were dealing with flies and covering their noses, Haddie found the jagged piece of column and stealthily slid it over to Jordan.
A sudden chatter of teeth and hissing made them all turn to the leader. He searched the darkness with a beam of light that suddenly momentary revealed a grotesque creature with a face covered by dozens if not hundreds of glowing red eyes.
The leader brought the beam back to the face as the creature hissed and revealed a mouth filled with needle-like teeth. An instant later the creature grabbed the flashlight and pulled the leader inside the den.
The other captors stumbled, dropped things and fired stupidly into the darkness. Haddie instantly grabbed a fallen flashlight, looked at her brother with wide, desperate eyes and yelled for him to—
“RUN!”
Chamber of Blood. Harbinger of Hell. Evil Eyes. 4.
Jordan and Haddie rushed through the cave with the screams and cries of dying brutes echoing through the bowels of the mountain. “What was that thing?”
“I didn't get a good look and I don't really want to!” Haddie yelled and she could see the sunlight ahead but sensed they wouldn't make it. “Keep going!” She yelled and turned to face the darkness with only a flashlight.
The hissing and crumbling faded to silence. She had no idea what she was going to do next. She narrowed her gaze, waiting. Teeth suddenly chattered and a hundred red eyes bore down on her.
Haddie inched back and fell to the ground beside a skeleton holding a kukri in one hand and a revolver in the other. She instantly wrenched the weapons out of its boney hands and clambered to trembling feet.
The creature approached slowly, hissing and chattering, its terrible eyes fixated on her. She stared at long arms and fingers with claws like knives. She lifted her arm and aimed the revolver at its head. Then she pulled the trigger and—
Nothing happened.
A hundred eyes stared down at the revolver, then back at her.
“Shit.”
The creature hissed, then attacked with a roar. Haddie evaded. Terrible claws swished overhead and hit the wall. Bits of rock and stone rained over her.
Covered in debris, she sprang up and ran with the creature in pursuit. She turned in the gathering dust and instinctively felt the attack before it came as she often did. With one quick thrust of her arm, the blade of the kukri severed the hand. The creature shrieked something terrible.
Haddie seised the opportunity to severe the head but the creature lunged away and the blade hit the stone wall. The kukri vibrated out of her hand and she dove to the ground as the creature charged her.
Tumbling away, Haddie instinctively grabbed a slab of stone. The creature attacked and missed, hitting the wall. Without hesitation Haddie smashed the slab over its bewildered head with a terrible crunching sound she wouldn't soon forget.
The creature collapsed and Haddie, adrenalin rushing, bludgeoned the head and eyes. When there was nothing left but a sticky, warm pulp she released the gore-covered stone and fell back on her haunches to gather herself. But no sooner did she relax than she heard the rising crescendo of chattering teeth echoing through the darkness.
With an almost defeated sigh, Haddie staggered to her feet. White fear flashed through her mind as the chattering and hissing grew louder and louder. Teeth clenched as thousands of red eyes flared up in the inky blackness of the cave. She backed away slowly, then spun on her heals and ran!
Chamber of Blood. Harbinger of Hell. Evil Eyes. 5.
Haddie charged toward the mouth of the cave with millions of eyes and chattering teeth on her heels. She felt the swipes at her back but never wavered. She vaulted wildly out the mouth just as one creature lunged at her. Haddie tumbled out of the cave as the creature hit an invisible barrier where the overlap of dimensions ended. She turned to see the dark mouth of the cave fill with scathing red eyes.
Jordan stepped up behind her. “Helly Haddie, does it again,” he said with a laugh.
Haddie gave her brother a dirty look. “Don't call me that,” she said curtly. Even though he had meant no harm, it was a name along with 'The Harbinger of Hell' children used to call her because bad luck, strange things and unexplainable accidents seemed to follow her. Years of therapy gave her the courage to accept her abilities and to boldly call her series the Harbinger of Hell.
Exhausted, Haddie sat on a sun-baked stone and watched the red eyes slowly disappear from the gloom of the cave. “Did you catch the creature on your shirt cam?”
Jordan shook his head as he sat beside her. She didn't think he would as creatures or relics from other worlds didn't register and often left blurs or glitches.
Jordan sighed and handed over the relic they had recovered. “What do you make of it?”
Haddie held it and felt great misery. In her mind's eye she saw cloaked figures hiding pieces of the same pillar in another world. She shrugged and kept what she had seen to herself. Then she pulled out her cellphone and handed it to Jordan. He centered her in the frame and indicated he was filming.
Haddie cleared her throat, mopped her forehead of sweat and soot, looked into the lens, and proceeded to address her online followers:
“My name is Haddie and I was born with a wonderful curse. All my life I've attracted strange and unusual things, and when I was twelve, I realised I was able to acquire insight to unexplainable events and otherworldly places.”
She took a moment to calm her racing heart. She swallowed her fear, remembered she had a series to sell, and forced energy and pep into her voice. “What do you need to know about India? It's where my father grew up and it's where I am today to explore the urban legends of this amazing country.”
Haddie took a moment to find her words.
“Our adventure begins in Northern India at a strange place locals call The Eyes or the Valley of Evil Eyes where hundreds have disappeared or died including a unit of British soldiers in the 1800s. What happened to these soldiers? Where did they disappear to? And is there any merit to the accounts of a cave-dwelling demon with eyes around its head that burn right through the soul?”
Haddie stared meditatively into the camera and wanted to say 'yes' to every one of her questions but decided it was better to leave them up to interpretation. After a dramatic pause, she finished, “Take a look at what we discovered. Judge the evidence for yourself... and see if there is any truth to the Evil Eyes of the Himalayas.”