Chapter 4

Emotions.

Jason did not understand them very well yet. While he understood certain ones clearly, most made him uncomfortable. The love his mother was expressing to and for him, while understandable, was beyond his ability to return. He felt nothing but mild gratitude towards her.

He knew this disappointed her, but he was unable to feel what she wanted him to feel, and what she obviously needed from him. He did feel badly for her about this, but in a disassociated way. He wasn't who she thought he was.

He examined his memories. He had two sets, and both were fragmented. He could see that he had (or, this body had) indulged in feelings and emotions freely in the past. But when he awoke, he was changed. He knew he was not the original inhabitant of this body. His other set of memories, which were coming in flashes, were growing stronger. He remembered another life, but that, too, was frustratingly just out of reach. He also knew he'd had a different body in that life.

He mentally set the whole business of emotions aside, and went about looking into land and houses to buy. Over the past eight months, he had turned a pretty good profit by keeping several units for rental. A few more he had bought, and then turned around and resold.

He also liked to travel and see the country, and observe people. He was still enjoying each meal, and always ate with a gusto that people had actually chuckled over. Everything was going fairly well when he became disturbed.

He could <feel> something was wrong. He was approaching it and had no idea what it was, nor how to counteract it. It unsettled him. He had rented a car for the weekend. He was traveling into the country outside of a large town in Maryland. He was going to go look over a prospective land purchase.

As he rounded a bend, he found it. He braked to a halt, skidding the last few feet briefly on the asphalt road. A dirt road to the right was getting weed choked, but was still visible as a road. He felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. He was instantly on his guard.

Evil was rolling off the woods and road towards the road. Something bad was located off the road, in the woods lining the side of the it. Deep inside himself, he <knew> what it was, but was unwilling to consider it. Yet, his <second site> confirmed the 'darkness' that he saw.

He parked the car, and locked it. He started walking up the overgrown dirt road. Potholes and erosion of the road's shoulders showed clearly. There was no evidence of any vehicles having traversed this road recently.

Keeping an eye out on the woods around him, he continued down the road at a brisk walk. Five minutes later, after rounding a curve, he came upon a dilapidated old building.

A wooden picket fence had, at one time, surrounded the old weather beaten house. It had fallen down in several places. The house was two stories, and looked like it had not been painted in years. The wooden sides were weathered and shingles were missing from the roof. The front porch sagged. At one time, it had been screened in, but the outer screen door was down on the ground.

The feeling he was getting, emanated from this house, almost like a wave. It beat against him continuously, and seemed to push at him physically now that he stood in front of the house. He gritted his teeth and walked closer, getting more detail as he did.

He managed a few more steps in the direction of the house then noticed that he had changed directions. He stopped. He had not wanted to change direction, but had found himself going off to one side. He narrowed his eyes and thought.

An image came to him then, of a glowing sword. As soon as the image came to his mind, the pressure that had been pushing at him was gone! The image wavered as surprise took over his mind. A sword?

As soon as he released the image of the sword, the waves of force were back, pushing with as much strength as before. He called up the image of the sword, again, and the pressure was gone. While he still could sense the "evil", it no longer affected him to any degree. It was now no more than a nagging sensation.

He held the image of the sword firmly in his mind, and strode forward with a new confidence that he wondered at. He got to the porch and stepped up onto the floor of it, carefully.

The wind had blown leaves and debris inside, but there was no sign of animal or insect activity. While he doubted anyone lived here, he called out, and knocked on the door of the house. No answer. He knocked again, just to be sure, and then tried the door. It was locked.

He tried peering in through the window, but a curtain on the other side blocked his view. He left the front door and walked around the house. All the windows at ground level had curtains that were closed.

The upstairs windows were similarly curtained, from what he could see from the ground. He knew abandoned buildings usually wound up with broken windows, and were vandalized. But with the way the evil rolled off of this one, he doubted anyone or anything would approach it deliberately.

As he went to the back of the house, he noticed a ladder that had been bolted to the side of the house going up to the second floor. He frowned. That was a strange place to install a ladder. It was attached to the side of the back of the house, just a couple feet from the back door.

He tried the back door; but it, too, was locked. Shrugging, he went to the ladder, and tested it as best he could. He started climbing. Of all things, there was a door built into the wall, up here. There was also a small platform you could stand on. From the looks, it was a homemade job. Perhaps the owner was not a good craftsmen, but had done it anyway, and hurriedly. All in all, a very strange place for a door.

Jason reached over and tried the door, the knob turned, and he pushed on the door. It opened stiffly for a short six inches, and then stopped against something. He frowned, and pushed harder. It opened a bit more, but stopped, again.

Since he was still standing on the ladder, he was in a bad position to apply any pressure. The small platform-landing that had been attached to the side of the house, did not look that firm to his eye.